An Old Box
by Litanya
Summary: [TAIORA, Takari, Kenyako] What would you do if you could shoot fire? Or maybe water? In a world where everyone is 'normal' half of the digidestined are given powers. But what consequences will they have to face? Finished
1. Prologue

Litanya: Okay… I have to stop making new fics. This is about the billionth that I have started… I keep on having to delete them off my computer otherwise it would overflow. But you don't really care about that, so I'll shut up and let you read the fic. I don't own Digimon or any of the characters that appear in that show. I own the other characters though, whoever they may be.

Oh, and 02 never happened… just thought that you would want to know that.

**_An Old Box_**

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**_Prologue_**

**_~DREAM SEQUENCE~_**__

_A small box was just sitting in mid-air, or it could have been on something, he wasn't sure. The space around him was covered in darkness and he wasn't even sure if he was there himself. All that he was aware of was that the box was there, with its own light. There was nothing really special about the box. It was made of a wood that was almost the colour of honey and it had been carved into the shape of a square. The corners were sharp and carved at exactly 90o. On the top of the box was painted an orange flower. Next to it, although considerably smaller, were flowers that were red, blue, light and dark yellow, light and dark pink, grey, green, purple and brown. These painted flowers looked almost real, but he knew that they were only that way because the artist's talented brush had made them. The flowers were edged in gold and it was obvious that the artist had taken a lot of care to make the design meticulous. But he had no idea why he should be dreaming about a box._

_"The box… opens with a tap on the top… not a word… the box…opens with a tap on the top… not a word…" a whispery old voice rasped in his ear, "The box… opens with a tap on the top… not a word…" The box seemed to lift in the air and spin towards him and he caught it, still hearing the rasping of the old man. He examined the design for a second before he tapped the lid of the box once. It opened and he screamed, for by doing that he felt a sense of a world of torture that was going to come soon. Very soon._

**_~END OF DREAM SEQUENCE~_**

As he woke he didn't scream, didn't sit up quickly in shock, but just lay there where he was, his eyes closed and his breathing only a little faster than normal.

_'It was only a dream, nothing else,'_ he whispered to himself in his mind, _'But if it was only a dream, why can I still remember every moment of it?'_ He was slowly becoming aware that it was daylight outside as through his eyelids he could sense the red heat of the Sun coming through his window. He used that thought to comfort his racing heart and he slowly opened his eyes. He carefully sat up and moved so that he could see if his little sister was still asleep in the bunk below him. Their parents were looking for a bigger apartment so that each of them could have their own rooms because, at the age of 14, Tai should not really be sharing a room with the 11 year old Kari. The 11 year old was still sleeping, her mousy brown hair lying in tangles. It was only up to her chin, but for some reason it _always_ tangled when she slept.

"Tai, Kari, time to get up!" he looked up quickly, wondering why their mother had called out to them on a day they didn't have to go to school, "You have your Digidestined meeting, remember?" Tai sighed in relief. He had thought that maybe she was going to take them to meet their relatives or something. He had almost forgotten about the Digidestined meeting. Kari was sitting up, rubbing the sleep from her tired crimson eyes.

"Morning Kari," Tai called down to her from the top bunk as he clambered over to the ladder, "For once I'll beat you to the bathroom!" Kari sat up at that, but then she seemed to be too tired to bother and she flopped back down again. Tai grabbed some clothes from his cupboard and disappeared into the bathroom, forgetting about his vividly clear dream. He felt a lot better as he emerged from the bathroom, dressed and clean half an hour later. Kari rushed into the bathroom as soon as Tai had opened the door and it slammed shut behind him. Shrugging in confusion Tai went to the kitchen where his mother had a plate of what looked to be green plastic bags with yellow spots on the table.

"Morning mum," he said as he took his seat at the table and eyed the 'plastic bags' suspiciously.

"Hi honey, did you sleep well? For breakfast it is my new recipe: Spinach Omelet Surprise! Your sister tried it but almost immediately you finished in the bathroom and she rushed off…" Tai was reminded of his dream at his mother's question, but then his gaze went beck to the 'plastic bags' that were his breakfast.

"Uh… yeah mum. I think that I would like to have some cereal for breakfast this morning," he got up and took a bowl out of the cupboard and took his special 'emergency' supply of Rice Bubbles out too. His mother seemed a little disappointed.

"Couldn't you just try a little bit? Please?" he felt guilty so he agreed reluctantly. As soon as he had tried some, he regretted it, but he had to eat it all. As Kari was in the bathroom, he had to use the kitchen sink to throw up all of the 'Spinach Omelet Surprise' whilst his mother wasn't looking. All he could say about it when she asked him was that he couldn't taste the salt and pepper in it at all. When Kari finally emerged from the bathroom an hour later, the siblings said a quick goodbye to their mother and left quickly to avoid getting a bag of their mother's recipe in their lunch.

"How long did you spend throwing up after that delightful breakfast?" Kari asked her brother sarcastically as they left the apartment building, "It took me ten minutes to get the taste of it out of my mouth, and I only had a mouthful." Tai groaned.

"You're lucky! Mum watched me like a hawk and made me eat a whole plateful. Let's not talk about throwing up anymore or I will. I already spent the three-quarters of an hour that you were still in the bathroom being sick, so please, let's drop this," Kari agreed, seeing how serious her brother was being. She did _not_ want her brother to be sick again right at that moment. They continued on to the park where they were meeting the others in a comfortable silence that only siblings can ever manage to construct. Tai was deep in his thoughts about his dream and Kari was thinking about what joke she and T.K could pull on the others during the day. It was because they were thinking about two completely different things and ignoring each other that they managed the comfortable silence. It is called the sibling silence.

"Tai, Kari, you guys are late," Sora, the eldest girl in the digidestined told them, a little annoyance sounding in her voice, "Joe, Mimi and Izzy can't come, they all muttered something about school work, so it's just the five of us." Kari went straight to T.K, her best friend and they quietly began to plot some practical joke.

"Yeah, sorry, my mother had a new recipe this morning and it took me three-quarters of an hour to throw it all up. So if the other three aren't coming, why are we waiting around here?" he pulled his digivice, the only one out of all of the digivices of the digidestined that could open the gate to the Digital World, out of his pocket. He quickly typed in the activation code, which only he knew, and the five digidestined disappeared out of the park and into the Digital World.

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"The One is coming… he's coming! Finally I will get them… I'll get the minions that I have always longed for. Then, then this world will me mine! All mine!"

"Master, are you still watching that melodramatic movie?" a bored voice drawled from behind the small brown three-legged stool that his master was sitting on.

"Entier, what's wrong? Are they finally here? I thought that I told you only to disturb me when they all arrived," the second voice, the voice of the master, was hard and cruel. True, he was only sitting on a tiny stool, but he still managed to sit on it as though it was a throne. He was watching a tiny TV that was positioned only ten centimeters from his knees. The room was extremely small, and that was why everything was so small and cramped.

"Yes, they are here Master, but there is one problem. Three of them decided not to come, so only five of them are here Master," Entier's voice was that of a servant, polite and a little respectful. It was obvious, even if someone just looked at the pair, who was the master and who was the servant.

"Well, go after them then, before they can find their Digimon. You incompetent! You should have been already attacking them right now. NOW GO! And remember that one will do, but all of them will be better," Entier quickly left the room, bowing as he did so, and ran off to get his digimon.

"Now the fun and games will begin. Finally," the master whispered melodramatically before resuming his watch of the movie. He didn't care if his servant failed to gain all five of them, as long as he got a hold of one. At least one.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *

"AGUMON, WHERE ARE YOU AGUMON?" Tai called across the wasted desert that the five digidestined had landed in, "GABUMON? BIYOMON? PATAMON? GATOMON? WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?" There was no reply.

"They told us that they would meet us here!" an exasperated Sora groaned, "How could they forget? They were the ones that arranged the meeting!" There wasn't even anything that remotely resembled any of their digimon on the horizon and they were beginning to get more than a little tired.

"Can we take a break Tai?" Kari asked her older brother, knowing that he would stop the group if she asked.

"Yeah, sure, I'm getting a little tired too," he immediately agreed, "But first we should set up some shade so that we don't get burnt." Matt opened the huge bag that he was carrying and took out a beach umbrella.

"Here, this should provide _some shade."_

"Where did you get all of this from?" T.K asked him, knowing that his older brother wouldn't have thought of bringing along a beach umbrella.

"Oh, yeah, Joe gave me some things when he dropped by to say that he was unable to come. The umbrella was one of them," Matt knelt down on the hot sand in front of him and dropped the bag carefully to the ground as Tai began to set up the umbrella.

"STOP right there!" they looked up to see a black Tyrannamon storm up beside them. They hadn't even noticed him approach until he was twenty metres away. Riding on the huge digimon's shoulder was a tall boy who looked to be the same age as Sora, Tai and Matt. He had serious blue-grey eyes and short, spiky dark brown hair. He was wearing a long white lab coat, making him look a _lot_ like a scientist. The only thing missing was a pair of safety glasses.

"Good morning to you too," an already irritated Sora muttered under her breath, whilst pretending to adjust the umbrella.

"Why do we need to stop? We're not doing anything wrong are we?" Tai demanded to know, somehow knowing that something was wrong. First their digimon hadn't come and now they were being ordered around by a scientist.

"My Master has demanded your presence and so I must take you with me," his magnificent speech was marred by a box falling from Tyrannamon's back. Tai managed to get a glimpse of it and to his horror he recognised it from his dream the night before. It was the box that was going to cause pain and terror.

_"The box… opens with a tap on the top… not a word,"_ he suddenly had an idea.

"That box is word-activated isn't it? It opens with a special word. If one of us opens the box, what do you say that you let all of us go except for the one that opened it?" the boy considered the idea, remembering that he only needed to bring one of them back, if not all.

"Sure, that sounds like a good idea," he always loved a good bet.

"You have to hold the box in front of us though, so it will be able to hear what we say. I'll go last too," the boy-scientist readily agreed to these conditions, getting ready to take a cruel delight in watching them lose.

"Tai, what are you doing? His 'master' probably only wants to say hello or something like that. We have to stay together!" Matt hissed his blue eyes like daggers. If looks could kill Tai would have been dead, "What if Kari or T.K opens the box? Then what do we do?"

"You have to trust me Matt; I know what I'm doing. Look, once this creep is gone you have to take the others back through the gate to the Real World. Straight away, okay?" Matt was about to argue when he saw the serious look Tai was giving him.

"What do you mean? You're going to be with us."

"No, I'm not. Just do as I say, okay? Now we'd better stop talking," the boy-scientist made them form a line, with Tai last. Then he stood in front of Sora, holding the box out towards her.

"Open sesame?" Sora said a little tentatively, having absolutely no idea what to say. The lid of the box remained closed. The box moved along to the next person, which was T.K.

"Abra Kadabra?"

"I'm evil?" this came from Matt, but the box still remained closed. Kari was next.

"Please open little box?" even pleading didn't work. Now it was Tai's turn and the boy-scientist's smile was extremely cruel. He knew that you couldn't open the box with a word. But Tai didn't say anything. He put his hand into a fist and then hit the top of the box with his hand. The boy stared at him in astonishment as the top of the box lifted.

"Now you have to let the others go and I will accompany you back to this 'master' of yours," Tai felt a chill go down his back as he saw the instruments that lay in that box. The others couldn't see it because of the rim of the box, but Tai could see into it clearly.

"H-how did you know how to open it? You said it yourself that it was a voice activated box," the boy demanded to know, closing it quickly.

"Dreams can come true after all," Tai shrugged. Kari and the other digidestined were looking at him, concerned about what to do, "Matt, I already told you what to do, so go! You guys are set free because of the bet, so follow Matt."

"But Tai-"

"No buts. You are going and that is final," they didn't question him again. He had spoken with such strength in his voice that they knew that they would never win the argument. They turned around and walked away, looking back at Tai over their shoulders every few seconds.

"And now, you are going to come with me. Master has been looking forward to this in a long, long time."

_End of Prologue_

Litanya: Well, I hope that you enjoyed the prologue of my new fic. The first chapter should be up either tomorrow or some time before Thursday… but it might be a while between updates after that. Anyway, please drop a review and tell me, as kindly as possible, what you think of this fic so far!


	2. Rage

Litanya: Well, I hope that you enjoyed the prologue of this fic. Please remember that I don't own digimon or any of the characters in this fic except for the 'evil ones.' You know who I mean… 'Master' and Entier. I hope you enjoy this next chapter!

Oh, and don't worry if I describe a few characters differently to in the show. It is a part of the storyline and everything that they look a _little_ different to what they do in the show… I don't think that I've changed them _too much, but yeah, just watch out for that._

**_An Old Box_**

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**_Chapter 1_**

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**_~ 2 YEARS LATER~_**

"Kari is your brother back yet?" the thirteen year old teenager sighed and shook her head. Another day they had spent waiting for him to come back, but as always, he never did. And they couldn't go back into the Digital World to find him because Tai's digivice was still the only one that could access it. The digivices of the other digidestined were able to get them back to the Real World from the Digital World, but not vice-versa. After two years of waiting, her brother was still trapped there and Kari's mother had gotten into a routine of asking each day whether Tai had come back. Kari was sick of it. She wanted her brother back, even if he sometimes was lazy or if he did tease her a lot. He had sacrificed his own freedom so that she and the others could be free, and she wanted him back. They all did.

"No mum, there is still no sign of him," Mari Kamiya sighed and walked away from her daughter and back into the kitchen.

"Well, tomorrow morning I'm going to make my Spinach Omelet Surprise, so he's going to be missing out," she tried to say it cheerfully, but there were tears in her eyes. Kari's eyes filled with tears too. Spinach Omelet Surprise was what they had eaten for breakfast the day that Tai had been taken. She could still remember joking about it with him as they had walked to meet the other destined. Oh, where could he be? What if… what if he wasn't back because he had been attacked by some evil digimon? What if the boy that he had had to go with had attacked him with the Tyrannamon? What if… there where thousands of possibilities, but only one answer and that answer was what Kari desperately wanted to know. She was about to throw herself on the couch to watch TV when the phone rang, rousing her out of her depressing thoughts about her brother. Her mother was busy in the kitchen and her father wasn't home, so she had to answer it.

"Hello, Kamiya residence, Kari speaking."

"Hi Kari, it's Izzy. Gennai just contacted me with some news, both good and bad," Kari's heart began to beat faster, hoping that the bad news wasn't that Tai was dead. Gennai was still in the Digital World, like he always had been, so he would know how Tai was… well, maybe.

"What did he say? Does he know where Tai is?" she didn't want to sound desperate, but she did. Luckily, Izzy understood.

"No, he didn't even know that Tai was still in the Digital World. The good news that he told me was that he was able to make it so that _all_ of our digivices can get to the Digital World."

"Great! Now we can go and find Tai. We should go tomorrow and-

"Kari, he also told me that the Digital World is too dangerous. He found our Digimon and they told him that they had received a message telling them to meet you at the forest when Tai was captured. The evil that is lurking there now is… there's this guy that is only known as 'Master' and he's causing trouble all over the place. Gennai says that it isn't safe for us to go there."

"But we have to! Tai is there and that means that he is caught up in whatever trouble is going on. We have to go there tomorrow and look for him. While we're there we can get to the bottom of this 'Master' creep and try to defeat him. Then the Digital World will be safe and Tai will be home!" Kari didn't care that it was too dangerous; she would sacrifice anything to get her brother back, just as he had to help her.

"I know, I know. Do you want to call the others or should I?" Izzy had given up, knowing that he couldn't win. He wanted Tai back almost as much as Kari and Sora, so he didn't bother arguing anymore. Kari's mind was set in stone anyway, when it concerned her brother.

"I'll call Sora and T.K. You call Mimi and Joe. T.K is with Matt, so I can talk to the two of them at the same time."

"Alright, so we'll meet at the park like usual? I'll see you then," and he hung up, after saying goodbye to his young friend. As soon as she had hung up she dialed T.K's number in quickly, and began to tell him of the good news.

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"Gennai, it's good to see you again!" Sora called to the elderly gentleman that greeted them as they arrived in the Digital World. They had all met at the park and an impatient Kari had practically dragged them all to the Digital World. Now they were all looking forward to seeing their digimon again, as well as trying to find their missing leader.

"What are you doing here Digidestined? I told you that it was too dangerous!" Gennai exclaimed, rushing to greet them, "You have to follow me immediately or 'Master's' allies may find you." The old man turned around and ushered them into his house, where their digimon were waiting patiently for them. There was general havoc as the digimon and their partners greeted each other for the first time in two years. When the noise finally died down, half an hour had already passed and Gennai was finally able to talk to them.

"As I asked before Digidestined, why are you here when there's all of this trouble about?" The Digidestined were confused.

"But isn't that what we are here for? The Digital World is in trouble and whenever it has been in trouble before, we have saved it. We should be here to defeat this 'master.' Besides, we have to find Tai," Matt added that last part on at a 'look' from Kari.

"Yes, we have to find Tai! That is the important thing," Kari exclaimed, with Gatomon on her shoulder. The cat-like digimon had chosen to sit perched on Kari's shoulders so that she would be able to keep track of the digidestined of Light without looking too obvious about it.

"I suppose that I cannot convince you to leave… at least not until you have found Tai. I think that I may know someone who might be able to help you. You should look for a boy called Rage. He knows everybody in the Digital World, right down to the last digimon. He also seems to know the routes of the patrol parties that 'Master' sends out. If anyone would know where Tai is, Rage is the one to know," Gennai looked down at his hands, as if he didn't want to see them as he said the next part, "Don't be afraid of Rage, no matter what you may think of him. He was captured by 'Master' too, although he has never told me for how long. You say that Tai was captured too, so maybe Rage was there when Tai was too. I-I don't know anything more, I'm sorry. You are just going to have to do this by yourselves."

"Hey, where's Agumon?" T.K asked suddenly, out of the blue, looking around the room slowly. He hadn't noticed the absence of the digimon of the crest of Courage until just now.

"He was deleted about a year ago now. We all stumbled across a patrol and he sacrificed his life for ours," the digidestined were horrified at this news and Kari had tears streaming down her cheeks.

"But he's okay, isn't he? I mean, all digimon are re-born, so Agumon is fine, right?" she cried, hoping that this was true. But Gennai just shook his head.

"The attack was laced with something that 'Master' had invented. It prevents digimon from being reborn. It is only used on digimon that try and fight the patrols. I'm sorry, but we couldn't do anything," the Digidestined were all in shock. Who would do such a thing? Finally it was Joe that pulled them all together again.

"Well guys, we had better go and find this Rage guy so we can find Tai and then kick this 'master's' butt!" but there was still a sad undertone in his voice, even though he tried to say this cheerfully. They all nodded some a little numbly, but they all followed him out of the safe little house.

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"I'm going out on my patrol now, so I'll see you guys later," he called back into the room, where two other teenagers around his age were sitting at a table roughly constructed from the trunk of a tree. They looked up for only a second from their card game that involved hitting the hand of the loser with the deck of cards at least seven times and then their eyes went back to the cards that they each held in their hands.

"Okay Rage, but make sure that you're careful this time. Last time they almost caught you again and that would not be very pleasant for the peace in here in the Digital World," Rage was sure that Yolie wasn't even aware of what she was saying as she chose a card from her partner's hand.

"Yes, we don't want to have to come chasing after you. And you probably should come back on time tonight, otherwise Yolie here will have a heart attack," Ken too was concentrating more on the game at hand than on his words and Rage could hardly make some of them out.

"Yeah, whatever guys. Yolie, don't bruise Ken's hand _too_ much more. I can never understand it how he _always_ loses at Bloody Mary and yet manages to win every other game. He must be an unconscious masochist or something," Rage grinned at the indignant noises that Ken made at his back before he climbed out of their little hidey-hole and back into the 'reality' of the forest. His real name wasn't Rage of course. It was more of a nickname that Yolie and Ken had come up with for him when he had refused to give them his real name. They had eventually gotten that out of him too, but the nickname was for everyone else to use. Ken and Yolie had become his best friends over the past year and a half that they had been free from 'Master's' lab. His best friends before that had been Sora Takenouchi and Matt Ishida, but he hadn't seen them in a long, long time. He wasn't actually sure of the exact time that had passed since that day when they had all come to the Digital World… it seemed like it had been forever since then, but he logically knew that it couldn't have been. For one thing he had grown, but he was only about fifteen centimeters taller than he had been when he had been captured. True, he had been really tall then, but the fact that he hadn't grown much told him that it hadn't been as long as he had thought.

_'It's funny that I should think about Sora and Kari and the others today… I wonder what I'm going to tell them if I ever run into them again. "Hi guys, it's me, Taichi Kamiya, it's great to see you again?" No, I can't say that. I'll probably introduce myself as Rage and leave it at that. Why am I even thinking about this? It's Yolie and Ken again… making me think of my friends. They are right, I do have to stop thinking and start paying more attention,'_ this last thought came as he stumbled over a hole in the ground that must have been made by a small digimon. There were a lot of holes over the ground where digimon had used to live, that is until they had either been caught by the patrols of 'Master's' servants or they had been advised to move by Ken, Yolie and Rage themselves.

The hidey-hole that the three friends lived in was relatively safe, at least for the moment. It was invisible to the enemy and it was defended pretty well most of the time. Every few weeks or so they moved the hideout so that they could be sure they had not been found, but they were fairly certain that they were safe. He kept his mind on where he was going; trying to make sure that he didn't break his ankle. The forest around him was quiet. There wasn't any sign of life other than Rage himself making his way through. That was to be expected as no one lived there, but it also meant that there was no noise to cover any that Rage made. Luckily months of practice had made it so that he made absolutely no noise as he crept his way to the main patrol route of the Tyrannamon that served 'Master.' He had a feeling that this time on duty he would see something much more exciting than he usually did…

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He was crouched safely under a bush with huge leaves. He did not know what had drawn him. But something had told him to be here, waiting under this bush. He was about to find out why. Ahead of him a small group of people, about six came into his sight. They were running as though they were being chased by something, but also as if they were impeded by something. As the group got closer, he was finally able to see what the situation was. The group was running from two huge Tyrannamon, they were running for their lives. They were carrying digimon, each human was carrying one. The digimon looked to be unconscious and that was obviously why the humans were running. On the back of one of the Tyrannamon was a guy about his own age, wearing a lab coat that was plain white, except for one long red stain that ran down the right hand side.

_'My friends… I must help them!'_ he thought to himself and he slowly stood up and stepped out of his cover, so he was able to see the Tyrannamon clearly. Slowly he concentrated on the pair and he raised his left hand up until it was level with his shoulder. Concentrating on both of the evil he digimon he commanded them to stop. His hand started to glow a soft orange colour and around the Tyrannamon the same faint glow could be seen, but only by those with the 'gift' as they called it. He then commanded the digimon to leave and they did so without a second glance at the prey that they had been chasing. He quickly ran over to them as they collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion.

"W-who are you?" the youngest of them, a young girl that looked familiar, asked him. It was Kari, the digidestined of Light. She looked up at the newcomer a little warily. He was pretty tall, taller than Matt but not quite as tall as Joe, and his short hair was a colour between red and brown. That wasn't what was strange about him though. His eyes were the strangest colour she had ever seen. They were a light orange. He was dressed in light orange, but it was ripped in a few places and dirt was splattered over the front of his t-shirt.

"Questions can wait until later. Now we have to get out of here, before another patrol comes by. Come with me, I know a safe place," he moved as if to leave, but they didn't even get up, "What's wrong? We have to get away from here!"

"For all we know you could just be like the people that took Sora or Tai away. We can't go with you until you tell us who you are," Joe told him seriously, watching the newcomer closely.

"Yes, I thought that there was someone missing… Fine, if you must know my name is Rage. Gennai knows me and I know that you know Gennai. You are the digidestined and I know each of you, so no need for introductions. Now come with me before the next patrol comes!" at the mention of the name Rage they all jumped to their feet and followed him in silence until they reached a small tree that was standing by itself in the middle of nowhere. Rage raised his hand again and commanded the invisible door to open. To the astonishment of the digidestined, a trapdoor opened in the middle of nowhere and a ladder dropped down into darkness.

"What is this place?" Mimi asked before Rage basically forced them down the ladder and into the dark room. He climbed down last and closed the trapdoor behind him, with obvious practice. He was a little uncomfortable about meeting with his old friends again and he hoped that they didn't notice.

"We are somewhere safe and that is all that matters," he noticed that Ken and Yolie had gone somewhere as normally there would be a light on here, so that he would be able to see when he got back from patrol. He walked ahead of the others, who had clustered around the entrance, and found a note from his two house-mates sitting on the table.

_Rage,_

_We had to go somewhere, but we'll be back in about an hour or so from when you are supposed to get back from patrol. We'll see you then,_

_Ken_

_P.S NEVER tell Yolie to go easy on my hand ever again… I think she might have broken it._

"The others will be back soon, so we can talk for a little while and then eat when they are here. Now we should see to your digimon. Bring them with you and follow me," he didn't give them a chance to speak or ask questions. He knew that the digimon needed some warmth straight away, as well as some healing herbs. They followed him into a small but inviting room that branched off from the main one. There were three beds that looked like the owners had practically thrown themselves out of bed that morning. The digidestined quickly laid their digimon around the fireplace that was in the wall of the far side of the room from the door. Rage had crossed the room to it and was stacking up wood to make a fire. By the time he had finished the digimon were all arranged around it and their partners had stepped back. They were now watching Rage closely, as though they still suspected him of something even though they had Gennai's advice that this guy was on their side.

_'Burn'_ Rage commanded, putting his left hand next to the wood after taking off the fingerless glove he always wore on his left hand. He could command things to move or stop with the glove on, but it would burn his glove to ashes if he tried to burn something with it still on. The digidestined behind him gasped as the wood easily caught fire, without Rage even seeming to put effort into it. They couldn't see the orange aura that had radiated from his hand, as they didn't have the 'gift.'

"Fire is my specialty," Rage shrugged at their astounded looks.

"We can see that," Izzy was the first to recover from the shock of seeing Rage's power being used for what they thought was the first time.

"A-Are you some kind of digimon or something?" Kari asked quietly, although a little hesitantly as if she thought that it might be rude to ask such a question. Rage froze for a second before he continued putting his glove back on.

"No, I'm human. You obviously haven't heard of the 'experiments' that 'Master' conducts," his voice was still friendly and warm, but it now had a cautious edge to it. Kari looked a little embarrassed.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so rude, but I've never seen a human set fire to something with just their bare hands before," Rage just shrugged and stood up, moving over to a small pot that was hanging beside one of the beds.

"You said that this 'master' guy conducts experiments. What does that mean?" it had finally seemed to sink through to Joe's brain that Rage had been to the same place that Tai had been and these 'experiments' didn't sound too good.

"You don't want to know. Trust me Joe, you, of all people, don't want to know," was Rage's reply as he pulled various herbs out of the pot. The herbs were weird looking; some were bright orange and some a dark black. He seemed to be digging through them to find the ones that he needed, but he took the time to look each digidestined in the eye before going back to his hunting.

"How do you know my name? Do you know us or something?"

"Yeah, I know you, even though it may just be through what Tai told me. Where is Sora? There is supposed to be seven of you and I noticed that she was missing when we got back here," they didn't make a sound and they seemed to freeze, as if remembering for the first time that she wasn't with them.

"She was caught by that boy on with the Tyrannamon," T.K replied quietly, seeing that no one else was going to speak, "We didn't get any sleep last night because we kept on hearing noises that sounded like attacks. Then this morning we stumbled on these two Tyrannamon and that guy… our digimon fought as hard as they could and Sora's digimon was deleted… then Sora didn't want to run because she had lost Biyomon and before we knew it that guy had taken Sora and had given her to another digimon that came out of nowhere to take back to that 'master' guy. That was about half an hour before you found us. We managed to run that far, but if you hadn't come along then… the Tyrannamon might have gotten us too." Rage listened to the story, but it was obvious that the others were deeply in their own thoughts, so they weren't listening. Rage could also hear the note of despair that was in T.K's voice and he realised that they had almost given up.

"Don't give up your hope guys; especially you T.K. Tai would be disappointed in all of you. We managed to escape easily from 'Master's' lab and so I'm sure that Sora will be just fine," Kari's faced perked up once again at the mention of her brother's name, and the others did a little too.

"You knew Tai? Do you know where he is now? Can you take us to him?" Rage shifted a little uncomfortably. After all, how could he tell them that he himself was the Tai that they were looking for?

"Umm… yeah, Tai and I were in 'Master's' lab together. I know where he is, but it wouldn't be safe to go at the moment, especially without your digimon. He is perfectly safe; it's just that the route between here and there is pretty dangerous. So umm… why are you guys in the Digital World? Just to find Tai or do you want to do something else?" he had finally found the right herb. It seemed that the pot had some sort of hidden bottom or something because Izzy was _sure_ that the small looking pot could not possibly hold _that many herbs. Rage was about to do something with the herbs he had found when a voice was heard from the other room._

"Come on Ken, your hand can't hurt _that much!" it was the voice of a girl that sounded a little younger than Rage and Matt, but the voice had an undertone to it that suggested that the girl was a little worried, despite her carefree comment._

"You almost broke it Yolie! But let's just drop the subject, okay? Is Rage back?" this voice sounded like the owner of it was in pain and Rage just rolled his eyes as though he had heard this a million times before.

"I'm in here guys! We have visitors too and some digimon that are badly hurt," there was a scraping back of chairs that came from the other room and then two teenagers appeared at the door to the room. The first was a girl with long violet hair and pale skin. Her eyes were a light yellow in colour and they looked a little eerie in the firelight. She was just taller than Mimi by about two centimeters and she had a grin on her face that told them that she was pretty happy about something. The boy with her was about five centimeters taller than her but he was still shorter than Rage. He had straight dark indigo hair that reached to just below his chin, but his eyes were a strange light pink colour. He was holding his left hand gingerly and Rage noticed that immediately.

"Ken, Yolie, why didn't you make it so that it was your _right_ hand that was punished? Yolie, you'd better heal Ken's hand so that he can help with the digimon," Kari and the other digidestined watched the two newcomers with suspicion.

"Sorry, we didn't realise that we were going to have to heal. We did it this way so that it would actually _be a punishment. It's no fun playing Bloody Mary when you can heal your hand in two seconds. It defeats the purpose," as she spoke she took the boy's left hand and covered it with her own left hand. In a few seconds the boy was holding his hand normally again and the pair rushed to the digimon that were still lying unconscious near the fire. The digidestined tensed up as one and Rage looked up, noticing their suspicion._

"The boy over there is Ken and the girl is Yolie. Don't worry about those two, they are not the enemy. They may be a little, well a lot, childish at times, but that's because they are younger than us… except for Kari and T.K. Apart from being a little immature sometimes, they are definitely not evil. Maybe a little masochistic, but not evil," the pair glared at Rage as they started to work. Yolie was working with Patamon, lifting his ears and letting her healing magic begin to work. Ken was healing Gabumon, being careful when lifting limbs so as not to hurt the unconscious digimon. Rage settled down next to Gatomon and began to heal her, although his skills as a healer were not as good as Yolie's or Ken's were. As he had told them before, fire was his specialty. He could still heal, but just not very well. The digidestined watched in silence, unable to understand fully what was going on.

"There!" Yolie exclaimed, as she finished healing Tentomon, who was last, "They'll sleep for a while, but when they wake up they should be completely better." The three healers were still sitting on the ground, next to their last patient, whoever that may have been. Ken was next to Palmon and Rage was next to Gomamon. The three of them seemed too tired to move.

"Hey guys, are you here?" there was another male voice coming from the main room and then a figure came to the door of the bedroom, holding an unconscious figure in his arms. He was wearing a white lab coat which had a red stain running all the way down the right hand side. The figure that he was carrying in his arms was an unconscious Sora…

**_TO BE CONTINUED…_**

Litanya: I feel mean cutting it off here, but this is the first fic of mine that I have been editing carefully and re-writing it until I'm happy with it. Umm… this fic will be a Taiora probably… well… definitely but I can change that I suppose, if I get enough reviews against Taiora… but I would only put Tai with Sora or Mimi and no one else. I don't write yoai, although I sometimes read it. Just tell me what couples you want in your review and I'll see if I can change it… but Taiora is my favourite couple so I'd have to receive a **_lot_** of reviews telling me to put Tai with someone other than Sora. And it is a Kenyako fic too… and that I _can't change. Anyway, please R+R and I'll update A.S.A.P, but I go back to school on Thursday and a camp over the weekend for school… so it may be a while. Please R+R and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!_


	3. Rage is Tai?

Litanya: Well, I just came back from my IB camp… a few hours ago anyway. My friend Steph was on camp with me and she has read this fic so far and all of my other ones too and I would like to dedicate this chapter to her because her support is fantastic and without her telling me to update, my updates would probably be _very_ slow. Steph, thanks for helping me with my writing… I hope you enjoy this chapter although it may be a bit confusing… but you know me and I'm always confusing!

Anyway I do not own Digimon and I only own 'Master' and Entier and any more characters that do not appear in the show too… so please don't steal them!

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 2_**

_"Hey guys, are you here?" there was another male voice coming from the main room and then a figure came to the door of the bedroom, holding an unconscious figure in his arms. He was wearing a white lab coat which had a red stain running all the way down the right hand side. The figure that he was carrying in his arms was an unconscious Sora…_

Kari and Mimi unconsciously backed away, the colour draining away from their cheeks. Almost as one the digidestined guys seemed to move so that they were in front of the girls, as if to protect them from something dangerous. Rage, Ken and Yolie didn't seem too concerned at the appearance of the boy, but at the reactions of their other guests they stood up a little wearily.

"Entier, couldn't you knock or something so we know when you are coming. You should have known that the digidestined would be here, so why did you come now?" Rage and the other healers were almost stumbling as they went over to the doorway where the bronze-eyed boy was still holding the unconscious girl. Kari robotically noticed that Sora's hair seemed to have changed to a colour that was almost completely red. It was no longer the auburn colour that they had all come to recognise when Sora's name came to mind. Kari also noticed that Sora was now wearing a fingerless glove, which was a lot like the one that Rage was wearing.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it. I never wanted to take _her_," the boy indicated to Sora, "to 'Master' but he was beginning to doubt my intentions. I do the best that I can but unless I give him digimon or people, he is going to get rid of me and instead put his trust in someone who would actually be his servant. I am really sorry that we had to meet like this." That last comment he directed towards the digidestined, who were still looking as though Entier was a murderer that was going to use them as his next victims. Entier moved quickly to the nearest bed, which was right near the door, and gently placed Sora down onto it.

"What have you done to her?" Matt demanded to know, seeing that his friend was still unconscious. He eyed Entier suspiciously and then turned to Rage, Ken and Yolie, who had all slumped back down to the floor, "And if he is here, then why should we trust you? He is a bad, evil guy, remember? He captured Tai and probably you too and gave you to whatever evil 'tests' that this 'master' guy did. How do we know now that you haven't turned evil too and are just pretending to be friends?" Rage looked up at him a little wearily as he finished his little speech, but he didn't say anything.

"Yeah, Matt's right on this one. You say that Tai is 'somewhere that is too dangerous to go now' but how do we know that you haven't gotten him locked up in some dungeon somewhere? Take us to him now and we can think about trusting you. But if you just fob us off and deny our request then we will know that you are just trying to keep us here so that your 'master' can get us," Joe pushed his glasses back up his nose and his gaze was definitely unfriendly. Ken and Yolie exchanged glances.

"You are looking for Tai Kamiya?" Yolie sounded surprised and she quickly looked back down at the back of her left hand, as if she was remembering something from her past.

"Yeah, he's my brother; of course I would look for him! He sacrificed his own safety and life for us and we owe him a lot. Why do you sound surprised that we are looking for him?" Kari knew that there was something going on that Ken, Rage and Yolie knew and weren't telling them. Yolie was about to answer but Ken replied for her.

"We just didn't know that you were looking for him. Rage didn't tell us that, and you had only told Rage, remember?" he and Rage exchanged a quick glance, but no one noticed it.

"So are you going to take us to Tai or not?" Mimi demanded, her patience running thin. She wanted to be on the way so that she could be sure of whom she could trust.

"You can trust us. Gennai trusts us and he should know. He knows the situation around here much better than you, so if he trusts us then why can't you?" Rage's voice was quiet and level and they had to strain to hear it.

"Give us one reason why we should trust you," T.K asked of him, seeing that this argument was going nowhere.

"You should trust us because we are digidestined," was the reply. Izzy raised an eyebrow at this answer.

"But if you are digidestined, where are your digimon? And your crests? And why weren't you with us in the Digital World during the Dark Masters and Myotismon?" everyone looked around questioningly, with each group looking for answers in the other.

"Our digimon have been deleted forever by 'Master's' formula. We can each give the name of our digimon if you really want. Our crests… you don't want to know what happened to our crests. And umm… as for the last question I don't know how to answer it," Entier had been silent before now and had been standing next to the three healers, watching the reactions of the digidestined closely.

"Fine then, each name your digimon and your crest and we'll see if we believe you," Rage stiffened a little at this request from Joe, but he didn't say anything. He bit his lip slowly, thinking deeply about something.

"Fine then, I don't see any harm in that. My digimon was Tyrannamon and my crest is of Integrity," after that Entier leaned back against the door frame, as if he had immediately relaxed after saying that.

"My digimon was Wormon and my crest was of Kindness," Ken was looking down at his knees as he said this, but the digidestined could tell that he was sad at the death of his digimon. His voice was hoarse and it sounded as though he was crying softly.

"Hawkmon was my digimon and my crest was of Loyalty," Yolie made no attempt to hide the tears that were rolling down her cheeks, and the destined were surprised to see that even her tears were a light yellow. Rage was just staring off into space and he didn't seem to realise that it was his turn to say something.

"Who was your digimon Rage? Rage?" Mimi waved her hand in front of his face, but it didn't seem to do anything to snap him out of it. He still seemed deep in thought, but he answered anyway, his voice vague as though he didn't realise that he was talking.

"Agumon," was his reply. He didn't seem to notice the surprise that rippled through the room after this seemingly mindless answer. He was still staring off into space, engrossed in either his thoughts or something that no one else could see. Ken leaned over and stared straight into Rage's eyes and then leaned back, rolling his eyes a little.

"Yep, he's completely out of it again. 'Master' always said that he had made some mistake in the 'experiment' and now he always drifts off into deep thought at the worst moments. Last week he almost got himself and us caught by 'Master' again. Usually when he's in this mood you can ask him absolutely any question and he'd answer truthfully before he even thought about it. That's how Yolie and I found out his real name… I think that the 'Master' made a mistake with the 'experiment' regarding me too, because I cannot seem to stop saying this useless nonsense," Yolie gave him a strong look and he became quiet, looking at the ground.

"So his real name isn't Rage? And he had Agumon for a digimon… Could he be my brother? What is your _real_ name?" Kari directed this last question at Rage who was still in his weird trance. Ken and Yolie seemed to look up and stare at the roof as one and Entier's eyes looked a little wild. Rage opened his mouth to answer, his face still expressionless, but just as he was about to reply to Kari's question, a blast rocked the room that they were in and Rage seemed to snap out of whatever trance he had been in and raced out of the room, his loss of energy from healing forgotten. Entier, Yolie and Ken seemed also to spring into action. Ken and Yolie seemed to be responsible for packing food into a small green bag that could not possibly hold the amount of food that they placed into it. They hurried about the room, pulling food from the strangest places. Entier lifted his left hand out in front of him and the wall at the other side of the room started to open slightly to reveal dirt and rock.

"Entier, why didn't you check to make sure that you weren't being followed?" Rage scolded in a harsh whisper as he re-entered the room. He seemed to move with a soundless grace that showed that he had been living in a world where one wrong move could mean death or worse. He also moved as though he had been training hard physically over the past year or so. Entier didn't lower his left hand as he made his reply in a tone that showed that he was a little offended.

"I did check! I'm not _that_ dumb and you know it. You know that my job is a hard one, and I don't see you volunteering to help me."

"I would help you, but you know that 'Master' would know that it was a trick in less than five seconds. They don't call me Rage for nothing you know. 'Master tried for ages to get me to be his servant, whilst I didn't know you were on our side, and I still wouldn't do it. 'Master' would instantly be suspicious of both me _and_ you if I had changed my mind that quickly, wouldn't he?" Rage snapped back, moving closer to Entier as though he was going to attack the bronze-haired boy.

"Yeah, I know why they call you Rage. _Cou_rage couldn't be anything to do with it, could it?" Entier's voice was loud and commanding, as though he was superior to Rage at this one thing, "Why don't you tell them your real name, huh Rage? Are you scared that they won't believe you?" Rage just stared back at him, his light orange eyes casting back an eerie light that looked a lot like dancing flames.

"My name and my past have nothing to do with this Entier! What about you? Your real name and past is just as important as mine. We were both at fault back then, and you cannot deny it," Rage's voice was growing louder and louder at each word, and it was almost like he wanted everyone to hear what was being said. Another blast, closer this time, shook the room, sending everyone flying.

"Guys, guys, shouldn't we be working together now instead of fighting? We are being attacked you know," Joe told them, a little hysteria in his voice. He _hated_ being attacked and he was scared that the enemy was going to hurt and capture them.

"Stay out of this Joe, it's just like those fights that Matt and Tai used to have," Joe, Kari and Mimi all turned quickly and gasped at the change in Sora. She was now conscious and sitting up on the bed, but that wasn't what had made their eyes widen in shock. Her eyes had turned from their usual crimson colour to the colour of blood, a deep, rich red. Her hair was also redder than usual and the effect was quite drastic. She now looked completely different to what she had before her capture. They only knew that it was Sora because of the fact that she was wearing the clothes that she had been in when she was captured. It was only now, as they were searching for the proof that it was Sora, did they notice a red stain that looked like blood on the corner of Sora's yellow t-shirt. Their minds shuddered away from the thoughts of the torture that Sora must have had to put up with to make such a drastic change in such a short time.

"_We_ were at fault? It was your fault that those digimon died and you know it! If you hadn't have been so sure that we could set them free from 'Master's' place then we could have waited and they would still be alive! SO IT IS _YOUR_ FAULT, NOT MINE!" Entier screamed, although his left hand was still up and there was now a considerable hole in the wall that even Rage would be able to stand up in. Rage's hand was pointing at the wall too, but his hand was behind his back so that anyone who did not have the 'gift' could not see that he was helping Entier.

"_YOU_ were the one that got the idea in your head to free them in the first place! If you hadn't told me of your idea, I wouldn't have tried to free them then! It's your fault that you told me of the secret exits, and so therefore we are **_both_** at fault!" the hole was getting deeper faster now as Ken and Yolie had finished getting the food and they were also helping. The banging sounds were still going on around them, but the people in the room didn't notice as they were concentrating on what was happening in the room. 

"_I_ only told you about those passages so that _you_ could escape and get Ken and Yolie out too. I _never_ even suggested getting the digimon out too!" the hole was now a small tunnel, big enough to fit all of them in at the same time with space left over. Rage motioned for all of the digidestined and Ken and Yolie to get into the tunnel that was still increasing in size. They followed his instructions and got into the hole, thinking that Entier and Rage would be right behind them.

"You did! You said 'These poor digimon need a break, we should find a way to free them all.' Then you went on about the SECRET PASSAGES AND BECAUSE OF THAT ALL LOF THOSE INNOCENT DIGIMON GOT KILLED BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT THE PASSAGES WERE SAFE!" as Rage's voice increased in volume, the dirt behind Joe and Mimi, who had been the last to go into the tunnel as they supported Sora up from behind, collapsed so that the digidestined and the two younger 'healers.'

"Hey, I can understand why Entier is staying, but why is Tai?" Sora called to Ken and Yolie, who were still burying the way out of the hide-out. Kari turned to where she though Sora was in the darkness and stared before she realised that no one could see her.

"What do you mean? T-Tai wasn't even there," but her voice was shaking and she was trembling without realising it.

"Don't worry, Rage always stays behind and makes sure that everyone else is safe before he manages to get out of whatever place they take him to. There is no place in either of the two worlds that is Rage-proof. Especially since he is extremely good at making fire… they used to try to put him in a fire-proof box and he always made it out of there. Lately 'Master' has begun putting him in a box that our 'gift' doesn't work on, but he gets out every time," Ken replied to Sora's question, as if he didn't even notice that Kari had spoken. Their progress was slow, but they were slowly making their way away from the hide-out, where Rage and Entier had remained. Both Kari and Sora felt that they were abandoning one of the most important people in their lives, though Kari still wasn't sure if Rage was her brother.

"Why won't you answer my question? Is Rage actually my brother?" she asked again, exasperated that no one was listening to her. Sora gave her a surprised look, but realised that Kari couldn't see her. She was so surprised that she tripped over what she thought may have been a rock imbedded in the ground and almost sent T.K, who was in front of her, flying into a solid wall of dirt on his left.

"Uh… sorry whoever I pushed, but Kari surprised me so much that I didn't really look- well, I didn't really walk carefully. Kari, I don't even know who this 'Rage' guy is. If he is the one that was arguing with the really nice dude that seemed evil at first, then yes, he is Tai. I'd have thought that you, of all people Kari, would have recognised your own brother. Sure, his eyes may have changed colour, he's grown a bit and his hair has changed colour too, but you should have still recognised him. I knew it was him the moment I saw him. Hey guys, do you want me to help? It will be quicker if I do and then we can start planning our attack on 'Master' and how we can make sure that he never 'experiments' on anyone ever again," she climbed over T.K, who was leaning against the wall from his small fall, and began to help Ken and Yolie, her 'gift' making it so that she could see to help the two youngsters.

"What about our digimon? We left them there too," Matt suddenly said, stopping the digidestined in their tracks.

"Gomamon will be fine, his jokes will get him out of it… I hope," Joe said without thinking, remembering the seal-digimon's lame jokes and how much trouble they had gotten him into over the years.

"Come on, we have to keep going. The digimon will be fine, Rage will make sure of that," Yolie urged them on, taking a short break from digging the tunnel to turn to say this.

"After listening to that argument between that Entier dude and Rage, I don't think that I trust him to save Palmon," Mimi said sincerely, tears coming to her eyes. Ken rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Both he and Yolie acted as if they were older than all of the digidestined other than Rage and they were almost the youngest there.

"Rage and Entier made the whole argument up. I doubt it very much that either of them has killed _any_ digimon. Well… maybe Entier has killed a few, but only because he absolutely _had_ to. Entier had to destroy Agumon, which hurt Rage of course, but the two of them are such good friends and so Rage understood that Entier had to do it. The argument that they had back there was to make it so the enemy wouldn't hear the ground moving as we dug this tunnel. Rage will get your digimon out of there, or maintain the image that they are invisible or something," Ken, too, had stopped, but they were safe because they were at least 100 meters from the hide-out, with a wall of dirt about fifty metres thick between it and them.

"Well, it would be endearing to us if we could get out of this excavate and draw up a plan so we can facilitate Rage and Entier trounce this 'master' dude," Izzy told them all, speaking positively. Everyone except Ken just scratched the top of their head, as if they were trying to figure out what he was trying to say.

"Oh, you mean that it would be attractive to us to get out of this tunnel and form a plan to get rid of this 'master' guy!" T.K exclaimed, being the first other than Ken to figure out Izzy's language, "Okay then, let's go!" And they set off again, each trying to think of a way they could help out Rage, otherwise known as Tai…

**_To Be Continued…_**

Litanya: Okay, lame spot to end it, but yeah… Sorry it has taken so long to get this up. As you can see from the top, I started this the day I got back from camp, which was last Sunday. It is now Friday and I can't put this up until tomorrow afternoon at earliest. I've only been back at school and I already have too much work! But I'll try to update again soon… but I'm running out of ideas for this fic. I'm going to start writing another at the same time, but I won't put that up yet unless it turns out to be a one-shot.

Anyway, I want to thank all of my lovely reviewers… I have only had requests for Taiora, which is good because I love Taiora! And Kenyako I good too… and so is Takari. So unless I get a heap of complaints about the couples, those will probably end up being the couples. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR WONDERFUL REVIEWS! I haven't been this happy about my fics for a long time.

And finally Steph, you issued the challenge to me to use the word 'endearing' in one of my fics and I have finally been able to do it… I don't know how you first found that word, but I'd never heard about it before you said it. So the challenge has been fulfilled… with Izzy talk naturally! I'll see you at school, remember, you can't get away from me! :D


	4. Remember Forever

Litanya: Well… I have no idea what I am going to type in this chapter, so you had better be warned about my strangeness of mind. Umm… I don't own Digimon and the only characters in this fic that belong to me are Entier and 'Master' and Rage to some extent… basically I think that Rage is my own character because I will use him again in other fics, but he won't be Tai, as he is in this fic. So please don't copy my characters, especially Rage 'cause he's my favourite. Anyway, on with the fic!

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 3_**

Rage sighed as he stared up at the ceiling of the box-prison that they had put him in. He always seemed to end up here, whether he liked it or not. Every time they caught him, they put him in the same place, claiming that they had 'upgraded the security.' Hell, he could get out of his prison without really trying if he wanted to. But at the moment he didn't want to get out. If the digidestined could come up with a plan to get him out of there, then they would be united again in the one cause. Then they would be able to kick 'Master's' ass and free the Digital World from evil. At least, that was the plan. He had managed to make sure that Entier put the digimon in a room that was close to the entrance, where the digidestined could easily find them. He didn't want them to be without their partners if they came upon trouble. Sure, they had Ken, Yolie and now Sora with them, but 'Master's' base wasn't as easy to get around as it seemed and there would be plenty of fuss caused if Ken and Yolie were found here… All he could do was wait and hope, so wait and hope he did, wondering how long it was going to take them to get there…

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *

"The exit's THAT way!" Izzy had no idea what Ken and Yolie were doing up the front as it was too dark, but it sounded like they were arguing.

"No, that was from the other base. The exit for this one is this way. You should trust me on this, I built this place."

"No, _I_ built this one, you built the one before!"

"Nope, you built that one that was near the lake. Rage told me to build this one because the exit of your last one was filled with water!"

"No-"

"Alright already! I've had enough of the two of you bickering! The exit is that way; I can feel the wind coming from there. Now let's just keep digging and get out of here so we can help Rage and Entier," Sora's cool voice intercepted their argument, and even Joe up the back could tell that she was annoyed, "You can continue your argument later, when people have time."  Ken and Yolie blushed, although none of the others except for Sora could see them. They knew that they had been arguing over something stupid, but they had forgotten that they were holding the whole group up over it.

"Sorry," they both murmured in unison before they continued their digging. Sora just nodded and continued to dig, her mind set on getting Tai back from 'Master.' She had never really taken 'Master' seriously, not until she had been taken to his lab. Just one little injection into her arm and now suddenly she could do all sorts of things. She had been cold in her cell, so she had tried to start a fire to keep herself warm, but for some reason it hadn't worked. But when she had stopped the wind from coming in through a hole in the wall, everything had gone perfectly. Soon after she had stopped the wind coming into the room she had fallen asleep and she had only awoken when she was back with the other digidestined… but why could she do some things, but not others? Why could she play with the wind, but not with fire?

"Are you okay Sora?" Yolie asked the older girl, noticing that Sora's mind wasn't on the job. The elder girl jumped a little, having forgotten in those five minutes where she was.

"Yeah, I was just thinking about this… these 'abilities' that I have now. Is there a reason why I can manipulate the wind as easily as a piece of clay, but can't do anything that has to do with fire?" Ken and Yolie exchanged a surprised glance.

"That's strange… really strange. Rage can do whatever he likes with fire… he can even make it dance around if he wanted to, but he cannot even feel the wind anymore. He can't even tell if it is an extremely windy day! I think that the power of _that thing_ that they put inside of you must have had nothing to do with fire… or it may have been the opposite to the _thing_ that was put in Rage," Ken explained slowly, looking at his left hand as it continued to dig on. Sora didn't fully understand, but then Ken and Yolie didn't seem to either.

"Is there anything that the two of you can't do?" Yolie nodded, almost forgetting to continue digging.

"I can't work anything that has anything to do with water; that's Ken's specialty. And Ken can't do anything that has to do with sand, which is my specialty. He can dig through dirt, but as soon as we reach sand, he won't be able to help. We both are extremely good at healing too, but my power is stronger in that as sand isn't exactly the most useful thing in the world. But other than that we can do everything else. Everyone that goes through the _'experiment'_ cannot do one thing with their 'gift' as we call it. Entier cannot heal. He has a lot of trouble with that, as more often than not he needs to either heal himself or the 'patients' for 'Master.' But he is extremely good at bending ice to his will… incredibly good at it," the wind coming in through the hole was getting stronger and Mimi could see a speck of light in the distance.

"Hey guys, isn't that the exit?" she cried out, unable to see anything but that one little speck of light. She was so excited at having seen something that she ran straight into that back of Kari, who was then pushed into T.K and the three of them fell to the ground in a tangle. Joe and Izzy, who had been talking quietly over the information that Ken and Yolie had given them, didn't seem them fall and so they tripped over the trio on the ground and made the tangle bigger. They all began to complain about who was on top of them and whose fault it was that they had fallen. Sora looked to the little piece of light that was falling through into the tunnel. The wind seemed to be warning her that someone was approaching.

"Shh guys, someone's coming!" she hissed, but they either didn't hear her or they didn't take any notice of what she said. Then a booming noise could be heard from above-ground. Something was definitely coming their way. The noise stopped and seemed to listen to the noises that were coming up through the ground underneath it. Then it let loose a terrible growl, as though it had found what it was looking for. Everyone stopped talking and shuddered, suddenly wishing that they had been quieter. They managed to untangle themselves quietly and stand up, but that was all they managed before the ground around them began to cave in…

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"99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer, you take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall…"

"Are you telling me that you just started that song now Rage? You usually start it the moment that you get in here," Rage refused to look afraid and he stared up and straight into the deep black eyes of 'Master.' The man was standing upright, but the small T.V that he carried at his waist marred his mature appearance. On the screen of the T.V it was clearly showing another melodramatic horror movie. The T.V made the man look at least a little insane.

"Yeah, actually I started from 999999 bottles this time. It helps the time pass by," Rage shrugged, showing that he wasn't afraid of this crazy scientist. Well, he was afraid, but he certainly wasn't going to show it.

"Ah, my first 'experiment,' how I have missed your presence," 'Master' touched the side of the cage that Rage was in with almost a loving-fatherly gesture. Rage's expression turned to one of disgust.

"I'd be ashamed of myself if I was you. You're pathetic, with your 'experiments' and horror movies. I think that I'd rather share a conversation with 12 hungry Tyrannamon than listen to a word of your 'Experimentation is the future' crap," he got to his feet and began to wander idly around his cage. It wasn't as if he could get far, but at least he was moving around, "98 bottle of beer on the wall…" 'Master' laughed a high pitched giggle.

"Oh, I have missed you. My last few experiments just haven't been the same. The procedure has been changed so that all they get is an injection from a special needle. I need the warriors now, not just for the fun of the torture. But you… when I had you to experiment on, I had so much fun! A whole half year of torturing you… at least I think that it was that long. You'd probably say that it was longer. I still have the sweetest dreams of your screams of pain. Those were the good days," 'Master' sighed, his eyes set on a far away object, as if that was the past. Rage raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yes sounds like a great time. I did love my time here oh so much!" he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. He hated it when 'Master' began to get melodramatic. He hated it whenever he even saw a sign of the man's insane mind.

"Oh, I know how much you enjoyed it. That is why I made this," 'Master' left his position by the front of the cage and was gone for almost two minutes before he came back, holding a gold armband. Rage eyed it suspiciously.

"What's that?" he backed away a little in his cage, unable to go anywhere else.

"It's a thing that I like to call a 'Remember Forever Band.' It's my new invention and I decided that as you came to visit, I'd give one to you," 'Master' smirked evilly, and easily reached out his arm and grabbed Rage, who had nowhere that he could go.

"Uh, it's a nice though and all, but I'd rather you didn't give it to me. In fact, as you decided to give it to me as a present, I've decided that I would like to destroy it," he struggled, but 'Master's' insane grip was too strong. And since the cage made Rage's 'gift' useless, he couldn't escape using that. 'Master' grabbed Rage's left wrist and wrapped the golden armband around it, sealing it on with the press of a catch in the side. Almost immediately as it had been put on, Rage began to scream, his orange eyes going wide with terror as he began to relive his memories of the 'experiment' whilst 'Master' watched on, laughing with cruel delight at Rage's screams…

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *

Sora was certain that the room she was now in was familiar. She _knew_ that she had been there. The same hole was letting the wind into the cell, making her very cold. As she sat up and the black spots started to stop dancing in front of her eyes, she realised that this time she was not alone in her little cell. The digidestined, Ken and Yolie also joined her in the bare cell, making it hard to move. As far as she knew, she was the only one awake. As her other senses began to awaken, she heard a sound that made her blood freeze in her veins. Someone was screaming, screaming in terror and for mercy. The screams were terrifying, and they sounded like they were coming from a room which was near the cell which she herself was in.

"Where, where are we?" Sora heard Kari mumble and she looked around to see that the young teenager was barely awake, her eyes open but still glazed over with sleep. Kari looked back at Sora and still wondered at the change in the older girl. The red eyes made an eerie light in the room which was neither scary nor pleasant. In a way it reminded her of her brother's now orange eyes. It was then that her hearing picked up the screams. She instinctively knew that voice; she had known it ever since she could remember.

"Tai! Why's Tai screaming? What's going on? Where are we? Why aren't the others awake?" Sora reached over and placed her hand on Kari's shoulder to calm her down.

"It's alright Kari, we'll get out of here," she told her softly, like she was comforting a frightened child, "We'll get out of here."

"But how?"

"That's what I want to know Kari. But I'm sure that we will find the way soon, we will…"

End of Chapter 3

Litanya: Sorry that this chapter is short and late, but I have been busy lately. I've been on school camp and Musical rehearsals and…. I'm just making up excuses. It's the long weekend now over here, so I may be able to type another chapter up tomorrow after doing my History essay… So please review and make me feel better! I promise that I'll do a long chapter next time, I promise! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed this fic, I really appreciate it. Anyway, I got to go now, so please review and I'll try to update tomorrow and if not then, then next weekend.


	5. Taken

Litanya: Hi again guys! Thanks to everyone that reviewed… I really appreciate it! I have no idea where most of that last chapter came from, it just popped into my head. I guess that's what you get when you write a chapter on a sugar high… Anyway, I do not own Digimon; I only own the plot of this fic. I also own 'Master' and Entier… so don't steal them!

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 4_**

_There was no way he could get out; he was trapped. He knew that Tyrannamon guarded all of the exits and they were all loyal to 'Master.' He was bruised all over from the 'experiments' that 'Master' had already tried on him. A long, deep cut was spilling blood down his left arm, making a soft dripping sound on the ground. There was nothing he could do but hope that 'Master' wasn't going to come back for a while. His thoughts were not consistent, one second he was thinking about how he could escape, the next he was thinking about coconuts dropping from trees in __Bali__. The pain in his body was making him dizzy and the loss of blood was draining the life out of him. Soon he would not be alive anymore, if this continued._

_"Ah, my precious experiment, you are bleeding too much. I think that I can stop that," he struggled to stay awake as the cruel voice came closer. His eyes struggled to keep open and when they saw the box in 'Master's' hands, he unconsciously screamed. But by now his screams were weak. He didn't have enough strength to fight and 'Master' picked up an instrument already covered in dried blood and brought his hand closer and closer…_

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The screams had stopped for a while, but now they had started again. She couldn't take it anymore.

"What are they doing to him? Normally nothing happens when he gets taken here…" Yolie trailed off, noticing that Kari was looking a little sick, "I mean, maybe 'Master' has invented a speaker or something that makes it sound like Rage is screaming. It is possible that that's the answer you know." They were all awake now, trying to think of a plan to get out of there. Yolie was seated next to Ken, the two of them having the best knowledge of the place. Sora had been unconscious when she had been taken away from this place by Entier, but Ken and Yolie had been awake when they had escaped. The digidestined needed their knowledge of the place to plan an escape.

"So there is an exit somewhere to the right of here, right?" Izzy questioned them again, determined to get back on track. He didn't want to think about the screams that they could all hear he just wanted to find a way to stop them.

"Yeah, I think so, unless this cell is in a different block to the one we were in last time," Ken answered, looking out of a small hole he had managed to make beside the doorway. Through the hole he could see a bright blue pole that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. As he watched a wave of energy began to radiate from the pole, the energy waves going in all directions. He moved away from the hole and motioned for Yolie to look. When she had seen the pole she leaned back and bit her lip. Her face was a little paler than usual.

"What's wrong?" Mimi sensed immediately that the pair wasn't telling them something and she hated people keeping important things a secret.

"There's something out there that will stop us from using our 'gift.' It radiates some sort of reverse energy wave that messes with the waves of our 'gift' with disastrous results. I remember when 'Master' tested it. There were two others with Rage, Yolie and I. Davis and Cody. Cody was three years younger than us and Davis was about the same age as Kari and T.K. 'Master' decided that he needed two of us to test this device that is out there. He played a cruel chance game to pick them. Davis and Cody were chosen to test out these machines, whilst Rage, Yolie and I had to watch. First they turned on the machine, which to us only looked like a blue pole. Then he got Cody to use his 'gift' of colour to try and change the pole to a green colour. The machine turned everything around… I'm not really sure what happened, and then Cody began screaming. And he still hadn't stopped screaming when they took him away, out of the room somewhere," Ken's voice trembled and Yolie let out a little squeak, and Ken continued the story, "Then 'Master' got Davis to try and turn the machine off, with his 'gift.' Davis tried and something sent him flying across the room. He stayed still for a moment, Davis always was brave and didn't let anyone know when he was in pain, but then he screamed. They took him away too. From that day on we never saw them again and we NEVER use our 'gift' whenever one of those machines is around. If we're going to get out of this cell, we're going to have to find another way instead of using our 'gift,'"

"What are we going to do then? We have to get out of here and help my brother!" Kari exclaimed, pounding the ground with her right hand a little angrily. Yolie was looking at the ground, her eyes watering as she tried to hold back her tears at the memory of her two friends. Ken was looking at the roof, not wanting to let the others see that his eyes were watering too. T.K crawled over to the hole Ken had made. He had injured his ankle when the tunnel had collapsed around them and as he moved Joe protested.

"T.K, if you move that ankle anymore it won't heal!" but the younger boy didn't answer and he kept on crawling. He had to help to get them out of there so that they could get Tai back and then send that 'Master' guy somewhere where he could not hurt another thing ever again. He had to, even if it would only help Kari out.

"I'll be fine Joe, stop worrying about it," he winced as he moved again, hoping that the doctor's son would not see it. Sora saw it, but she didn't say anything. She knew that T.K just wanted to help, but that wasn't the only reason she didn't say anything. The screams were making it so that she couldn't think. Now they weren't the same as they had been before, it was almost as if Tai or Rage or whatever he was called now was exhausted, or badly injured. And she couldn't get that thought out of her head. What if 'Master' was slowly killing her best friend? She couldn't say anything because she was trying desperately to get the screams out of her head. And then, just as suddenly as they had begun, they stopped.

"Hey, the screaming stopped. That's good, right?" Kari asked, her voice trembling. Sora didn't know how to answer her. She didn't know if Rage had stopped screaming because he had passed out or worse or maybe he hadn't even been screaming at all. Maybe that machine was making them all _think_ that he had been screaming. She didn't know what was real anymore. Maybe all of this was a dream and she would wake up to find that none of this had happened at all. Well, she hoped that that was true.

"Is that blue pole that machine you were talking about?" T.K had reached the hole and was staring through it at the surrounding area. Ken looked back down from the roof and nodded, slowly.

"Yeah, that's it."

"Do you think that Rage used his 'gift' and that is why he was screaming?" Izzy asked, coming up with the possibility that none of the other digidestined had wanted to ask. Now it was out in the open and they were scared of the answer.

"No, it's not possible. 'Master' would never do anything that would destroy Rage. 'Master' is more than a little insane and Rage was his first 'experiment.' That reminds 'Master' of how fun it was to 'experiment' on him. As Rage was the first 'experiment' 'Master' didn't really know how to do this, so basically Rage was tortured a lot to go through with it. The person after Rage, an Australian girl named Emma, didn't survive the 'experiment.' Now 'Master' takes precautions to make sure that Rage is never in any danger whilst he is here. If Rage is screaming when he's here, it's probably because 'Master' takes a cruel delight in other people's pain. He's a sadist," Yolie replied, taking her eyes off the ground. She couldn't help but be upset whenever she remembered Cody and Davis. Cody had been almost like a younger brother to her. He had lived next door to her ever since he was born and she had often been invited over to baby-sit for the younger boy. Davis had been one of her best friends at school, infuriating after a while, but always fun to be around. And now they were both gone.

"This 'Master' guy sounds really sick..." Matt trailed off as he heard someone coming down the hallway. It sounded like whoever was coming had a T.V, because melodramatic music could be heard along with a woman's scream.

"He's coming!" Ken hissed and T.K instantly scrambled away from the hole, smashing his ankle against the ground. He winced, but didn't cry out. He didn't know what would happen if he did. This 'Master' guy didn't sound very nice and so if they made noise, he didn't know what could happen. There was a creaking of hinges and then 'Master' entered the room. T.K scrutinized the man that was unquestionably insane. He had small black eyes that sent an aura of power to whatever they laid on. His hair was cut short and black, as if his hair wanted to be the same as his eyes. He was clothed all in black, with an additional black pouch attached at his side which carried a small-screen T.V. Around 'Master's' neck was a sharp silver spike, which was attached by a thin chain of silver. He was standing tall, as though he was the one in authority and that no one had the right to question him or his actions.

"Ah, my 'experiments' and the rest of the digidestined, how wonderful it is to have you all here in my abode," his voice was high, with a certain pitch to it that suggested that his mind was not entirely there.

"And it is _such_ a nice place that I always just _love_ to come here," Ken said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Yolie elbowed him, but he continued as if she had never done anything. It was obvious that he was in one of his honesty moments, "And the staff that are here are just _wonderful_. Please remind me later to thank them for arranging our room." 'Master' just laughed.

"Ah, I remember you. Always going on about what you thought and then stopping… I enjoyed programming that into you. Before you were always boring, always being so kind and polite to everyone. I know now that I was right to do so," he cackled, a sound that chilled the blood of everyone else in the room, "Give me your left hand, NOW!" This last was a command and Ken's hand jerked out immediately, almost as if it was a habit to do so. The digidestined saw that Ken was wearing a light brown fingerless glove, just like the one that Rage wore. 'Master' walked over until he was in front of Ken before he ripped the glove off. Ken didn't move; it was almost as if he had frozen in terror. Mimi gasped in shock. She was the only one of the digidestined other than Sora that could see what was on the back of Ken's hand. Engraved there was a small rectangle, approximately the same size as their crests. The rectangle area was a light pink in colour, the same shade as his eyes. And in the center of the rectangle was the sign of Kindness. _It was Ken's crest_. Mimi backed away as far as she could, which was only two steps, and continued to stare at the back of Ken's hand. Neither Ken nor Yolie noticed, their eyes were transfixed with terror on 'Master.' Sora wasn't much better than them, but at least there wasn't the same degree of terror in her eyes than what shined in theirs. The others looked at Mimi, wondering what had made her so shocked.

"W-why do you have us here?" Matt called bravely, showing that he wasn't scared of 'Master.' The latter just turned to the blonde-haired musician and smiled, a cruel sight.

"I have need of more minions. My servant will be here soon to pick you up, so you'll be ready. Now, you, you and you, FOLLOW ME!" and with an insane giggle he turned and marched out of the room, Sora, Yolie and Ken following him as if they were in some sort of trance…

_To be continued…_

Litanya: I'm really sorry about the short chapter and the long time between updates, but I'm really busy at the moment and I'm getting a bit of writer's block for this fic. I'm in the process of writing another, which is probably a one-shot and will maybe come out later… I'm doing the best I can with this fic but I probably won't be able to update it for at least another week… Sorry for the lack of updates, and thank you very much for sticking with me this far! I'd have given up if it wasn't for your support. Thanks guys!


	6. TK's Dream

Litanya: Okay, I have a few hours… I think. I'm supposed to be doing all of the homework that I couldn't do because of the school musical… but I'll do it later. The musical finished last night and so I have more time now! Plus it is school holidays next week and bingo, I have more time to write. Anyway, I'll stop blabbering on now and I'll get on with the fic. Please remember that I obviously do not own Digimon and the only characters that I _do_ own are Entier and 'Master.'

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 5_**

The room was cooler now that the three of them had left. T.K shook his head, cursing himself for thinking about such a mundane thing. This wasn't the time to notice things like temperatures. Mimi had sat down on the floor and had rolled herself up into a little ball, staring at her crest which hung around her neck. She was fingering the crest and muttering to herself, and T.K could see that her hand was shaking. He checked that Joe was busy looking for bandages before he quickly scooted over to where the pink-loving girl was seated. She didn't even notice his presence.

"Mimi, are you okay?" this comment made Matt look up from where he was to see that the girl was upset about something. He cursed himself for not noticing it before. He usually watched Mimi all of the time, but he had been so caught up in his thoughts on how to escape that he hadn't noticed that she was distressed. Mimi looked up as T.K spoke, her eyes filling with tears as she shook her head, her long hair swinging as she did so.

"I- it's just that I saw Ken's hand…" she trailed off and looked back down at her crest again. Matt and T.K exchanged glances across the room and Matt came over to the pair, his concern reflected in his fast pace.

"What was wrong with Ken's hand?" he asked quietly as he sat on the other side of her, placing his arm around her to comfort the crying girl.

"His hand… it-it had scars all over it, but that wasn't all that bad. His crest… his crest of Kindness had been embedded into his hand…" Matt felt sick and all other activity in the cell stopped at Mimi's words.

"His crest was in his hand?" Kari's voice shook, her thoughts immediately going to her brother. If that had been done to Ken, had it been done to Tai too?

"Yes… and it was the same colour as his eyes. Tai's crest was orange and he has orange eyes. Sora's eyes are now the same red as her crest once was… and I can tell because I know the difference between the shades of different colours," Mimi's voice had almost become detached, as though she wasn't actually thinking of what she was saying. It was almost as if she had only noticed these things unconsciously. Matt instinctively drew Mimi closer to him and she began to cry, burying her head in his shoulder.

"T.K I told you not to move!" Joe scolded loudly, partly to forget about what Mimi had just said and partly because the boy needed to keep still for his ankle to heal.

"My ankle is fine Joe," but even as he said that it began to throb painfully and his face twisted in pain. Joe noticed this time. 

"Don't move," the tall boy stood with a pile of bandages in his arms and walked to the trio, "Now T.K, this might hurt a little, but it's for the best." T.K's eyes grew wide, thinking that Joe was going to really hurt his ankle to fix it, but it only hurt a little bit. Joe finished wrapping the ankle and then went back to his bag. The only sounds that could be heard in the room were Mimi's sobs. After a few minutes had gone by, more footsteps echoed down the hallway.

"Do you think that's him again?" Izzy asked tersely, tensing up as if he was frightened to death. 'Master' had scared Izzy more than any other living person had, for reasons that he was unsure of. The door to the cell swung open slowly and a boy around Kari's age stepped into the room. His eyes were completely white, and they looked glazed over, as if the boy wasn't actually controlling them. His hair was spiky and dark brown with stripes of white throughout. He was wearing what looked like a straight jacket and long white pants. He was the servant 'Master' had sent.

"One of you must come with me right now," he rasped in a hoarse voice, "You must come without a struggle or it will be worse for you." None of the digidestined moved. They barely even breathed. "You must come now!" the boy seemed to scan the cell until his eyes landed on T.K. He stalked to where the injured boy lay and grabbed his arm. T.K winced as the hand on his arm tightened, almost cutting off his blood supply. Then the servant boy began to drag him towards the door, taking no heed of the boy's cries of pain.

"T.K!" Matt called as he reached to stop his brother, but T.K was gone before he could grab him. Joe, Izzy and Kari were frozen with fear and T.K himself couldn't seem to stop himself from being pulled away. After a few meters, when the pair was out of the cell, the servant boy stopped dragging T.K along.

"You can get up now," he murmured quietly, his eyes going in all directions as if suspicious about people watching them, "I'll show you the way to the exit. Then you can decide what you want to do." T.K blinked, but rose to his feet, careful to keep his ankle off the ground.

"What?" he asked, staring at the newcomer in a different light. He still couldn't believe that he had been freed.

"Look, follow me and I'll explain," the white-eyed boy led T.K on a path with many twists and turns until T.K was unsure whether they were going the same direction they had started in. They came to a white door with a green "Exit" sign hanging over it. The boy pushed the door open and waited for T.K to go through. Once they were outside, T.K finally could see where they were. It was a huge underground base that was built into the side of a cliff. The door that they had just come through was invisible; at least it was to him anyway.

"Who are you?" he blurted out as he surveyed his surroundings, still unsure of whether this boy could be trusted or not.

"You don't know me and I doubt if you have heard _of_ me either. My name is Davis Motimya, one of the people captured by 'Master.' You are Takeru Takaishi, more commonly known as T.K, are you not?" T.K gaped at him. This was the boy that had been taken from the room screaming after using his 'gift' around one of those blue things. Or at least he was one of the boys taken away.

"You're Yolie's friend… one of the people who had to use their 'gift' whilst one of those blue machines was turned on…" Davis shuddered.

"Please don't bring that up… it was a terrible experience, although I guess living here doesn't exactly make up for it," Davis looked up to the sky, as if he was once again making sure that nothing was there.

"Why are you helping me? And how did you know who I was?" T.K asked, still shocked. He was trying to take everything in, but it wasn't working. It was just too much in the short amount of time he had been in the Digital World.

"Why am I helping you? Do you mean as in why I chose to get you out of the room when I could have chosen someone else?" T.K nodded, and then hesitated.

"Well yes, but also why are you helping us in the first place?"

"I picked you because this is _your_ dream. _You_ are the only one that can save us from this almost real dream state. We are trapped here, prisoners of 'Master' until we die, unless you save us. Have you taken a good look at 'Master?' A really good look?" T.K shook his head, suddenly scared. He didn't know what was going on, but this Davis guy was scaring him.

"What are you saying?"

"This is all a dream. This world is all a dream, but we are real people. 'Master' is not real… he too is a dream, a guy of your own creation. If you don't stop him, then we're all doomed. Just because of this mad dream-world Tai, Sora, Yolie, Ken and I have had all of this crazy stuff done to us and it cannot be reversed. You need to find a way to stop this dream thing so we can get back to the real world," T.K just stared.

"You mean that this is just a dream? Nothing here is real?" Davis bit his lip before shaking his head.

"You didn't listen, did you? _We_ are real… all of us digidestined are _real_ but the world we are in and people like Entier and 'Master' are not. Everything that happens to us here stays in the real world, but in itself this world is not real," Davis struggled to explain, biting his lip yet again.

"So… how do _I_ stop it?" T.K asked after trying to puzzle through Davis's explanation. The other boy sighed.

"Okay, listen carefully, okay? This whole thing started after you were hit by a car. You went into a coma and everyone was worried about you. We just thought it was a normal thing to have happened though, and we didn't dwell too much on _why_ it happened, we just spent our time hoping that you would get better. Then, about a week after you had gone into your coma, something really strange happened. Tai injured himself really badly at soccer… so badly he had to go to hospital. The staff there gave him some penicillin to ease the pain of his injury… without realising that he was allergic to it, and he went into a coma. 5 minutes later we heard that Kari had been attacked on the way to the hospital and…"

"Let me guess, she was in a coma too?" T.K interrupted, his eyes shining with concern. The Kamiyas were his close friends… he didn't want anything to happen to them.

"Yes… now all of us are in comas. First you, then Tai and Kari, then Sora, Matt, Ken, Yolie, Joe, Izzy, Mimi and finally Cody and I. What you have to know is that in your coma you went back into the past. When you were hit by the car, you were fifteen, but at the start of this 'adventure' when Tai disappeared you were eleven and now you're thirteen. Your coma is controlling all of us… this world is your creation. For some reason you let me off so that I'm still not screaming in a little room like Cody is, and I can explain this to you. But you _must_ do something about it. Our lives, especially Tai's at this moment, depend on you. Please, you must figure this out…"

End of Chapter 5

Litanya: Okay, even I must admit that that was a strange twist… very strange. And I added a little bit of Mimato in there… even though I probably had some Jomi elsewhere in this fic. I can't really remember. Anyway, I know that this is another short chapter, but I hope that I will be able to update quicker, at least for the next two weeks. So please bear with me and review!


	7. Reunited

Litanya: I'm so disappointed! I just finished Final Fantasy X-2 on Playstation 2 and the ending is so… so… lame. But anyway, this is digimon, not Final Fantasy. Anyway, I do not own Digimon or really anything in this story except for the plot and 'Master' and Entier. They're mine, all MINE!!

Oh and umm… if I forgot to explain it before, Yolie has the crest of Loyalty and Davis has the crest of Miracles and Cody, well he has the crest of Obligation. I made them up…. I have heard that Davis has the crest of Miracles, but as I have only seen the 02 series and none of the movies, I wouldn't really know. 

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 6_**

T.K stared back at Davis, unable to believe his ears. He had never even met this guy before and here he was telling him that it was _his_ fault that they were all here? What was this guy thinking?

"I don't really understand. How am _I_ supposed to a) believe you when I don't even know you, and b) defeat this guy even if I do believe you? And how do you know that whatever happens here happens in the 'real' world?" Davis looked a little puzzled, as if he didn't know how to answer.

"Oh… you wouldn't know me here… of course. You are just going to have to trust me. What do you have to lose? Your friends are all locked up in some cell, well except for Ken, Yolie, Sora and Tai who are all in the process of being tortured because they still resist to go over to 'Master's' side. We know that this dreamlike world affects the real one because Tai's crest of Courage appeared in his left hand, and the same sort of thing happened to Ken, Yolie and Sora. T.K, you _have_ to believe me. You're our only hope."

"But… _how_ am I supposed to do this?" Davis bit his lip.

"Izzy found that a digimon was behind all of this. Since I got here, I've realised that 'Master' is probably the digimon that is running this show. To stop this crazy dream, I think that you have to defeat 'Master'. But that isn't an easy thing to do. Other than help you to escape, I can't do anything to help you. Someone is going to notice that I'm missing soon and alarms are going to go off. I know it. Please, you're our only hope," as Davis finished speaking, red alarms began flashing off the side of the 'cliff' and T.K could only gape. Everything was happening as Davis had said. Could it be a trap?

"B-but wait!" he cried out as the other boy began to move back towards the 'cliff' without a backwards glance.

"I'm sorry, but I've done all I can. If I were you, I'd try and look for some help. Maybe the others can help you, if you can get them out. But please; remember that we're depending on you. Hope is your strength, so you should know what I mean when I say that all our hopes are on you." He disappeared into the 'cliff' before T.K could say anything more.

_'Whoa, this must be a dream. I never knew __Davis__ could be this mature'_ this thought drifted across the back of his mind and he almost didn't notice it, _'Hang on… that means that I do know him. Maybe he was telling the truth after all.'_ He sighed and leant back against the 'cliff'. Davis must have left the door open in his hurry, and as T.K couldn't see it in the first place, it was just his luck that he managed to lean against it. Or he went to lean against it. As it was open, it sent him sprawling on the floor in the middle of the hallway.

"Hey you!"

_'Scheißen!'_ swearing in German didn't make him feel any better as a tall, wide shadow fell over his face. He looked up at the boy that stood five metres away from his head. He was obviously under 'Master's' control because a crest was instilled in his left hand and there was a gadget firmly attached around his right.

"You there, you're coming with me. 'Master' wants one of you little 'digidestined' now, so you'll do," T.K gulped. If this was his dream, was he really this sadistic and sick?

_'Well, __Davis__ did say something about an evil digimon,'_ he thought to himself as the boy began to drag him. For some reason it didn't even occur to him that he could stand up and walk alongside of the boy instead of enduring the pain and carpet burn from the floor. He didn't even consider the idea of refusing to go to 'Master.' It was almost as if his dream was leading him to either the end of the dream, or the end of their freedom…

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Kari rocked herself slowly, ignoring the people around her. Not that any of them were really talking. She had her thumbnail in her mouth and she was chewing on it anxiously. T.K had been gone now for over three hours, according to Joe's trusty digital watch anyway. The day just seemed to be getting worse and worse and without T.K to give them hope, they were falling apart. On the upside, her brother had stopped screaming a while back. That had been the only good thing that had happened. A slit of light fell into the room from the area where the door was. She wasn't sure of where the door was exactly as all light had been cut off from the room. She looked up to the ray of light and saw that someone had opened the door. She could see the silhouette of two figures in the doorway; one was standing up pretty tall and the other was slumped over.

"Hey guys, it's me Entier," she sighed and relaxed a little as she heard the familiar voice. She hadn't realised that she had been so tense.

"What is it?" Matt wasn't exactly irritated, but he wasn't too happy with their situation either. He kept on thinking about what Tai would do, but to no avail. He had pounded on the door for about half an hour, according to Joe, but it hadn't even budged. He was starting to get a little desperate.

"'Master' is busy 'experimenting' on your other friend, so I couldn't help _him_, but as 'Master' was busy, I managed to sneak in and get Rage- I mean Tai- out of his cage thingy. There was also a strange device on his arm, but I managed to smash it to pieces. It wouldn't come off any other way. He's unconscious for the time being, but he may wake up later. I'd bust you guys out of here too, but 'Master' has guards _everywhere_," he dragged what must have been Tai further into the room and closed the door, casting the room into darkness yet again. Kari rushed over to where she thought he had put her brother, and she could hear other rustles, indicating the others were doing the same. She walked carefully, aware that she could run into anyone at any time.

"T.K's being 'experimented' on? I hope he's okay," Matt muttered, unconsciously running his hand through his hair. He hated it when people did anything to harm his little brother, or when T.K was put in any danger at all. He had even freaked out once when T.K grazed his knee on the basketball court. He was an overly over-protective brother.

"Yes, but Davis wasn't the one that took him to 'Master'. He took T.K out of here and got him out of the base to explain what was going on. Then, when Davis had to leave, T.K was caught and taken to 'Master'," Entier was about to continue when Izzy interrupted. Out of all of them in the room, Entier was the only one that could see them all, as his eyes were able to adapt to the dark. He was amazed as they all stopped just before they ran into each other. It was almost as if they knew when the others were around them.

"You mean Davis managed to talk to him about this whole 'dream' thing?" Kari just stared blankly at Izzy, but the only one that noticed this was Entier.

"Izzy, have you explained this theory to Kari? I would assume that she was one of the earlier people installed into this dream thing as she's Tai's sister. I mean, _I_ got put in here before you and I don't even know T.K," Izzy frowned, deep in thought. He was smart, but he didn't really know how all of this had happened. How could the dream of one person be affecting them all, with effects that lasted in the 'real' world? How could it happen? He knew that a digimon was behind all of it, but he wasn't sure how it had happened. Matt wasn't entirely sure of what was going on either. He had been pulled into the 'dream world' about an hour after Kari. Unbeknownst to him though, it was because he had been in the path of a falling light at one of his band practices. Mimi and Joe knew about Izzy's theory as they had only been put in the dream later than all of the others. But even though the two of them knew about it, they did not fully understand it. Only Izzy could ever fully understand his theories. The young genius in question shook his head in reply to Entier's question and then opened his mouth to explain it all.

"Kari, and Matt I suppose because you didn't hear this either, we are in some sort of 'dream world'. This is T.K's 'dream'. I don't think that T.K is really controlling it as he's not this sadistic, but we're in his dream nonetheless. The thing that is really unexplainable is that it is a bit like in the Digital World: whatever happens here affects us in the 'real' world…. I don't think that I am explaining this suitably. What happened was that T.K was hit by a car in the 'real' world and he fell into a coma. That's pretty normal if you think about it. What happened next was a little dubious though. Tai was badly injured playing soccer and was taken to the hospital so that his injury could be treated. Unaware that he had an allergy to penicillin, the nurses gave him some… and he fell into a coma too," Kari gasped and her eyes went to the ground, unknowingly landing on her brother. Entier watched this curiously, wondering how it was possible that she instinctively knew where he was, even though she couldn't see. Then again, he didn't have any siblings so he didn't understand the connection between them.

"What happened then?" Kari asked, wondering where this was going. She was half-afraid of the answer.

"We got a call about five to ten minutes after Tai had gone into his coma. Kari had been on the way to the hospital when she had been knocked unconscious by a pick-pocket. The blow was hard enough to send her into a coma. Ken and Yolie were on a bus that crashed and, you guessed it, they went into comas too. Then Sora was pushed down the stairs by some weird guy and she fell into a coma. Matt was next… a stage light fell on him during one of his practices. Joe then had an asthma attack… and that's the last thing I remember. I guess I must have had some sort of accident too that put me in a coma. Anyway, Davis and Cody would have been last out of us digidestined that we knew before we got here. When we fell into the comas, we all began to have this huge collective dream. What happens to us here happens to us in the 'real' world. For example the Crest of Courage appeared on Tai's left hand when he was in a coma. We just thought that it was temporary and was showing that his courage still existed, but then the same thing happened to Ken and Yolie. Their crests showed up on the back of their left hands. They haven't moved or anything, but the physical evidence is binding. At the time we weren't _exactly_ sure that this was all happening in a dream, but now I am sure. The problem is; I couldn't explain it to T.K because he is controlling the dream and in a way, he is manipulating our thoughts. He didn't _want_ me to tell him, so therefore he didn't get me to tell him. Unless he figures this out on his own, we're going to be here a long time, maybe forever."

"Then how on Earth can we stop this craziness?" Matt burst out, sick of not being able to do something positive. He was worried about his little brother, best friends and close friends, Gabumon and he was also worried that the dream would never end. He didn't want that to happen. Mimi had sat down and she was twirling her hair through her fingers as if she was deep in thought. Joe was going through his medical bag, feeling the items with his hands to identify them as it was still too dark to see. Kari was sitting still, feeling that this mission was going to be the toughest one yet. How could anyone explain what was happening to them? How could it happen? Izzy shrugged at Matt's question and yet in a way he was answering Kari's questions too. It couldn't be explained what, why and how this had happened to them.

"We can only guess. My theory is that there is a digimon that is controlling this 'dream world'. If we can defeat that digimon, we would all wake up and get on with our usual lives. If we don't… we're stuck here for a long time. We already are younger here than what we were in the 'real' world. For some reason T.K decided that two years into the past would make a great time for this little story to play out. I don't know about the very beginning of this dream, but now I'm 15 and in the 'real' world I'm 17. To make sure that this dream ends soon, we have to defeat 'Master'. I'm pretty sure that is who the digimon is hiding behind. I believe that if we delete the digimon our collective dream will end and we will all awaken normally, as if we had just been sleeping," Izzy's 'explaining' voice was staring to get on Mimi's nerves, but for once she didn't have the heart to complain. This was a serious matter and their lives could be ruined if they didn't figure a way out of this. And Mimi knew better than most that Izzy was the best person to figure out a way to get out of this. The room lapsed into silence as everyone was deep in thought. Then Entier straightened, remembering that he wasn't supposed to be there.

"I'd better go before 'Master' finds both Rage-Tai and I gone. He would get suspicious of me if R-Tai was missing and I was gone and we really need him to trust me at this point. Please keep calm; I'll try and get you out of here when it is safe to do so. I'll see you all later," he left the room as quietly as he could, not wanting to catch the attention of any of the nearby guards. Matt sighed as he heard the sound of the lock clicking back into place. He really hated being helpless.

"Guys, I think I've found a candle and some matches," Joe told them quietly, holding the objects safely in his hands, "I'm going to try and light it, okay? Then at least we'll be able to see." There was a sound of a striking match and soon a small flame could be seen, lighting up a small area of the ground. Joe guarded the flame carefully, not wanting to let it go out. It had taken him forever to find the matches and he didn't want to have to try and light the candle again. Once the candle was finally alight, he used the light to find more candles in his bag. He lit all the ones he could find and placed them in a little circle around the small cell.

"That's better, I can see everyone now," Kari said, partly to break the silence and partly out of relief. It wasn't very relaxing to be a prisoner in a cell when you couldn't see anything. The enemy could be right behind you and you would never know. She looked down and saw her brother. His face was pale and he was lying on the ground where Entier had presumably left him. He didn't look all that well, but she could see no physical injuries. It didn't explain why he had been screaming at all. Joe noticed her gaze and pulled his medical supplies over to Tai.

"Is he going to be alright?" Matt asked the doctor-to-be after he had finished examining the unconscious boy. Joe frowned and pushed his glasses back up his nose.

"Yeah, he's perfectly fine. He has sustained no physical injuries at all, he's just… unconscious. He should wake up pretty soon though, as far as I can tell," as if he had heard Joe's words, Tai slowly opened his eyes and blinked as though confused.

"Tai!" Kari called out, happy that her brother was fine. His eyes were a little unfocused, but other than that he looked perfectly healthy. He slowly sat up and looked around; looking puzzled as to how he had gotten there.

"How did I get here, wherever here is?" he asked after he had looked around for a bit, "And how did you guys get here? I never knew that you were in the Digital World." Mimi raised an eyebrow at this.

"Don't you remember Tai? You helped us get away from those Tyrannamon and then you helped us escape from your base-thingy and you got caught and we got caught but you were already in that room and-" she paused for a second, "And I guess that that _is_ pretty confusing. I mean, I know that _I_ wouldn't know what was going on either. I mean, I don't know what is going on. I mean…. I'm just going to be quiet now." Everyone just stared at her, "Okay, okay! So I made a fool of myself. It's just that I want to go home to my parents and my nice comfy room where…" She trailed off and put her head on her knees. There was a short silence.

"O-kay… I'll explain it to you Tai," Izzy told him of how it was all a collective dream that they were having because of their comas and the digimon controlling it. He was about to explain how everything that happened also happened in the 'real' world, but Tai interrupted.

"Don't tell me that what happens here occurs in the 'real' world too. Just don't tell me that. Just tell me that if I die here, then I die in the 'real' world, okay?" his voice seemed normal whilst he said this, as if he had taken it for granted that unusual things happened all of the time.

"Okay… if you die here, you die in the 'real' world too," Izzy did what he was told, knowing that Tai had been through a lot in this dream. Tai grinned, looking completely back to normal.

"Okay then. Let's figure out a way to beat this guy. I know my way around this place like it was my second home," he knew that if he was told it was all a dream, it would make it better. He would know that when he woke up from his coma, all of the torture he went through would have only been a dream. Sure, he would have his crest in his hand, but he would have never gone through the pain, because that was just a dream. He didn't want to think about it if his 'gift' still worked when he got home.

"Well, this is what we know about this collective dream…" Matt began and they began to talk about how they could get out of the cell and beat that 'Master' guy…

End of Chapter 6

Litanya: Okay, now that took me a long time to write. I'm sorry it took so long. The next chapter may also take a long time as I go back to school in two days time. I'm sorry that the updates have been so long and not very good, but I try. Anyway, please R+R!


	8. Reality

Litanya: I do not own Digimon, nor do I claim to do so.

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 7_**

"So, we know all of this about this dream thingy and we've done nothing so far?" Tai could not believe it. After all of the knowledge they had of the dream, they hadn't found a way to get out of it. Matt looked a little guilty.

"Well, we didn't have our esteemed leader to help us get out of this situation," he protested a little sarcastically, earning a strong 'look' from Tai.

"Well, do _you_ have any ideas Tai?" Izzy asked, heading off the fight that the two were almost certainly going to get into. After all, T.K always did remember that Matt and Tai had not gotten along in the Digital World the first time.

"Yeah, it's simple. I just tell him to wake up and he will. Then we will all wake up and the digimon we have to fight will be right there. We destroy the digimon and there you go, this whole ordeal is over," they gaped at him as if they could not believe it, "What?"

"It's not that simple Tai, we have to destroy the digimon first, and then we will all wake up anyway," Kari told him simply. She loved her brother and all, but she did not think too highly of his intelligence. The general feeling in the room agreed with her. But Tai shook his head.

"No, if we destroy the digimon, then it will be deleted for forever. If it does not free us from this dream first, then we will be trapped here for forever, with no way out. Trust me; I've spent a long, long time here. And 'Master' cannot keep a secret if you paid him a billion dollars. Trust me; I will get us out of here. When have I led you wrong before? Wait, don't answer that one. If you want to get out of this dream, it is simple. Just leave it to me," they were about to continue when the door opened. A strange yellow light engulfed the room for about five seconds before it faded away and the door closed. The light had been too bright to look at and so no one had been able to see what had come into the room, if anything had.

"T.K?" Kari guessed, knowing that his crest was the same golden yellow as the light had been. There was no reply, but Joe heard something fall softly against the floor.

"Someone is in here; I heard them either fall to the ground or step on something. I just can't see because the light in here is so bad," he complained, adjusting his glasses even though he knew that he couldn't see. Tai shrugged.

"If you want light, just tell me," he told them and in two seconds he had created a small fire which rested on the palm of his left hand. The room was now lit up so that they could see everything.

"Whoa, I didn't know you could do that," Izzy exclaimed before he went silent. Tai just laughed.

"Yeah, it is pretty cool I guess. Basically the only thing that I cannot do is play with the wind. Not that I'd really want to do that anyway," he muttered this last sentence to himself as he turned the flame so that it faced in the direction of the door. There, lying on the ground was T.K. Joe pulled his medical bag around to go and help the seemingly unconscious boy, but Tai stopped him.

"What is it Tai?"

"There's no point in going over there to help him. I'm pretty sure that he'll be fine in a minute or so. Hope is a crest that is likely to have high healing powers. That means that he'll probably be up in a second telling us that he is fine," almost as soon as Tai had finished speaking T.K slowly sat up and looked around at the others, confused.

"Are you okay T.K?" Kari asked, surprised that her brother was right about something for once. The young blond blinked, looked down at his left hand, and then looked at the girl, his eyes now a deep gold.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he looked to Tai's hand, where the flame was still burning. T.K watched it for a second before a smaller flame appeared in his left hand. He looked down at it. "Cool."

"I can see that you were 'experimented' on," Matt could hardly believe his eyes. His little brother could create fire with his hand. It had been hard enough that some of his friends could do it.

"Yeah, I…err was…" T.K stood up so that he didn't have to look up at everyone, extinguishing his flame as he did so.

"Heri ali odi maordio?" it sounded like gibberish to everyone but Tai and T.K. It was the older of the two that had spoken. T.K looked at him uncertainly before replying.

"Yelio aber tanishi."

"I thought so," Tai finished, in a language that everyone could understand, "'Master' used basically the same procedure on me, except that he had to fiddle around with it first. He used a different technique for Sora though. That could limit her understanding of the whole process." T.K nodded, as though considering what Tai had just told him.

"But if so then why would 'Master' be so liberal with the secrets?"

"Because it is in his programming to do so. Besides, he believes that as soon as he 'experiments' on us we're going to go over to his side. He couldn't be more mistaken than if he thought a potato was a flying saucer, but he believes it. So I assume that he told you how to wake up from this delinquiter?" T.K nodded.

"What on Earth are you talking about? I don't understand a word that you are saying!" Mimi had finally had enough. She hated feeling as though she was outside of the loop.

"Don't worry Mimi, we'll be out of this place soon enough. Just tell me to wake up," Mimi looked confused, but opened her mouth anyway.

"Wake up T.K?" it was more of a question than a command, but it worked anyway. In Odaiba hospital, 12 sets of eyes opened. In Subiaco Hospital in Western Australia, another five sets of eyes opened, looking confused. All over the world, groups of children and teenagers were opening their eyes, awakening from comas that they had been in for up to ten weeks. But at Odaiba Hospital, the digidestined were not the only things that awakened…

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"Sora… your eyes!" her mother exclaimed as she looked over her daughter. She could hardly believe that Sora had woken up after being in her coma for seven weeks. The guy that had pushed her down the stairs had disappeared, though Mrs. Takenouchi had the Police hunting everywhere for him. Nobody hurt Sora unless they had a death wish, was the way that Mrs. Takenouchi looked at it.

"Relax Mum; it is okay," the red head replied, searching through the ward to find her other friends, "Is everyone alright? I don't really remember what happened…" Her mother stopped and began to explain what had happened, but Sora tuned out. She knew now that her friends were all there somewhere, although she had no idea how.

"Hey Sora," Matt, Izzy and Joe entered the ward, heading towards her. Mrs. Takenouchi stopped her explanation as she realised that her daughter was not listening. She left to go and get a cup of coffee instead. Something told her that she was going to need her.

"Hi guys, what's up?"

"You have to come with us. Tai, T.K, Davis, Yolie and Ken are fighting the digimon that was controlling us, but I think that they're going to need your help," Joe informed her, "We'd help but we're not really equipped to fight. Come on, they're at the park." Sora didn't stop to think. She stood and ran out of the ward, ignoring the cries of the nurses to walk. The others needed her help, so she was determined to give it to them.

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It was raining outside where the fight was going on.

_'Pretty ironic eh? In the movies it is always raining when evil guys are around. I wonder why it is raining now…'_ T.K thought sarcastically as he dodged another of the digimon's attacks. It seemed that the digimon preferred to attack with water, probably because he knew that Tai's main attack was fire. Ken and Yolie were on the other side of the digimon, waiting for Tai and T.K to distract it so they could attack.

"Hey, over here, have some fire!" Tai called out to the digimon before he released a wall of fire. It literally was a wall. T.K was amazed that Tai could create that much fire. The digimon, who still hadn't introduced himself, dodged the attack and shot water back. Tai managed to erect a shield of Earth just before the water attack hit him. Whilst the digimon was distracted, both Ken and Yolie launched an attack. But the digimon sensed them coming and managed to send them flying straight back at the two teenagers. Ken thought quickly and put up some sort of barrier. If this kept on happening, the fight was going to last forever.

"Give it up digidestined, you are not going to win!" the digimon cackled evilly, sending a shiver down T.K's spine. This was the guy that had been controlling his dream, the guy that sent them all into comas. He deserved to be defeated.

"We're never going to give up. Our whole world is depending on us and we're not going to let you win that easily. You may have controlled our comas, but you're NOT going to control our lives too!" T.K called out, embarrassed at how corny he sounded. He sounded like he had watched too many movies. Davis gave him a strange look, before he reached out and seemed to grab thin air. The digimon was lifted into the air, but then in a flash Davis was in the air and the digimon was on the ground.

"Hey!" Davis cried as he was flung to the ground.

"Are you okay Davis?" Cody called as he raced to join the group. Cody was always worried about the welfare of others.

"Yeah, I'm fine Cody. Good to see you not screaming," Davis scrambled to his feet and grabbed Cody as a flaring attack screamed their way.

"Thanks," Cody told him as they got up from the ground. The pair of them always seemed to be on the ground or in rooms screaming. It was almost as if the digimon had a particular grudge against them. Or maybe just T.K did.

"T.K look out!" he had been so absorbed in watching Davis and Cody that he had forgotten to check where the digimon was aiming its next attack. And it happened to be right at him…

End Chapter 7

Litanya: Okay, that was a lame ending. Please review, I'll update when I can.


	9. Pscychonomon

Litanya: I do not own Digimon.

Someone has asked me why I choose Tai as my main character. There is a simple answer: he is too good to be true. He's the leader, at the end of 02 he has a good job, everyone respects him and he has a great family. Life just does not work that way and so I make him have problems, like any normal human being.

And don't worry; this WILL be a Taiora, but maybe only in a few chapters.

**_Chapter 8_**

_"T.K look out!" he had been so absorbed in watching Davis and Cody that he had forgotten to check where the digimon was aiming its next attack. And it happened to be right at him…_

He felt himself get thrown to the ground, the tall figure that saved him rolling away. They had only just missed being hit by the wave of water. He heard Yolie gasp and a small cry from Ken and guessed that the digimon had swung his attack around at them. He couldn't see, as he was facing the other way.

"You alright T.K?" he nodded in reply to Tai's question before slowly getting to his feet.

"Yeah, thanks Tai. I owe you one," the older teenager just grinned and shrugged before turning back to the fight. It was going to be a tough battle. This digimon seemed to have the ability to shield itself from any attack, and then shoot its own attack back twice as strong. Even though it was a battle that was six on one, the digidestined were losing.

"Guys, sorry I'm late!" Sora ran to Tai, going to him as if it was a natural thing. Behind her were Kari, Izzy, Joe and Matt, dragging Mimi along behind them. Even though they had no powers of their own, they wanted to do what they could to help out in the fight.

"It's a good thing that you got here Sora. Now duck!" Davis called to her and the auburn haired girl immediately obliged, making the water attack blast a tree behind her to oblivion.

"Thanks Davis!" she called back after the attack had missed. She turned to Tai, who was still beside her. He was studying the enemy closely, as if watching for a weakness.

"Izzy, do you have any info on this guy?" Sora jumped as Tai called to the boy genius, who already had his lap top out.

"His name is Pscychonomon. His main attacks seem to be based on brain wave patterns. In other words, some of the attacks he uses are fake. His real goal is to force the minds of his victims to the brink of insanity," this information did not make the digidestined fighting feel any better.

"Okay, make sure that you dodge _every_ attack. We may not know when his attacks are for real or not," Tai warned them, throwing his gaze aside for a moment to his best friend, before having another staring contest with the enemy. Pscychonomon had not moved since he had tried to attack Sora. Tai knew that the next attack would come suddenly, and it would have disastrous results if it hit. It almost seemed as if Pscychonomon was gathering energy, to use it in his next attack… "Oh no!" Sora looked at him strangely at his whispered comment. She had been the only one to hear him; the others were too far away, watching Pscychonomon carefully.

"What is it Tai?"

"He's gathering energy. He's going to attack real soon, and it's not going to be good if he hits. I have a feeling that we had better strike him down soon, otherwise we won't be around for much longer," without waiting for a response from Sora he moved until he was directly in front of Pscychonomon. Sora knew better than to follow him. Ken and Yolie had been picking themselves up from the ground and T.K had been recovering from his unexpected fall. Davis and Cody had been waiting for Tai to move, somehow sensing that he had a plan.

"So, the digidestined of Courage is trying to figure out my plan. How quaint," Pscychonomon mocked. He did not move anything, not even his mouth. He was communicating with Tai's thoughts, only he could hear him.

"Stop hiding behind your psychic attacks and fight like a digimon," Tai tried to provoke the enemy, but he just laughed instead.

"I know what you're trying to do you know. I am a psychic digimon after all. Your mind games won't work on me," again this was communicated only to Tai. Sora and the others had no idea what was going on. To them it looked like Tai was almost talking to himself.

"You may be a psychic digimon, but you cannot predict everything," he was starting to sound a little crazy, like he was talking to Pscychonomon but also to himself.

"Tai, what's going on?" Ken called from the other side of the digimon.

"He is trying to use psychic attacks to make it seem like I am going crazy. He can communicate with people through their minds. He is trying to create dissent between us. We have to form a plan. Flying trees would be good."

"What would be good?" Davis couldn't believe his ears, "_Flying trees?_ Have you gone crazy or something?" but Tai didn't answer. Instead Yolie launched an attack that looked like it was made up of pieces of a tree trunk. At the same time Ken closed his eyes, as though concentrating on something other than what was happening in front of him. Tai threw a wall of fire at Pscychonomon which could have burnt the 100 acre forest.

"Okay, 'Flying Trees," T.K muttered, staring at the chunks of wood that was Yolie's attack. Pscychonomon laughed before putting a shield up to block both Tai and Yolie's attacks.

"Is that the best you can do? A little bit of wood and fire? Even a young Agumon can do better," but as he said this he was knocked of balance by the shaking ground. Evidently the ground underneath was dirt and not sand, as Ken released his attack. Pscychonomon was knocked off balance, his shield disappearing.

"Everybody; NOW!" the group let off a communal attack, each attacking with their best ability. Ken used water, Yolie attacked with a sandstorm, Cody used some strange technique that looked strangely like he was stretching the enemy digimon, Davis attacked with ice shards, Sora conjured up a mini hurricane and Tai's wall of fire made the area light up as though it was full sunlight. Pscychonomon was caught badly off guard. All that could be heard from him was a loud shriek before he was deleted for forever.

"Boy do we have a lot of explaining to do," Yolie commented, rubbing the back of her left hand surreptitiously. It had started to ache after Pscychonomon had been defeated and she knew that it wasn't a good sign. It was almost as if she had played 'Bloody Mary' and had forgotten to heal her hand, except that it felt grainier, almost like it was filled with sand. But she wasn't the only one who felt that way. Even Tai, who hated showing any sign of weakness, was holding his left hand a little gingerly.

"Geez, ouch my hand is killing me!" Davis exclaimed, rubbing his hand until it turned red. His crest of Miracles was still firmly imbedded into it, much to his dismay. He had been hoping that it had all been a dream.

"It must be a side-effect of the changes that your bodies went through whilst in the co-operative dream. It will pass soon, I'm sure," but the usually confident Izzy did not sound all that confident about this. Something like this had never happened before, and so he had not researched it.

"Yeah, it'll be over soon, like Izzy said. At least your and doesn't feel as if it is on fire," Tai shook his hand around, as though he was trying to cool it down somehow. Sora, on the other hand, was wincing every time the wind blew.

"The wind is being very unkind to me today," she commented, trying to keep a smile on her face. Tai looked at her blankly.

"What wind? Darn this stupid thing… I don't even know when the wind is blowing!" in a way he found it funny, but in another it was a serious problem. If he couldn't feel the wind, how would he know when people were coming if he didn't hear them? But at that moment it didn't matter. He was exhausted. Attacking with a wall of fire took a lot of energy, but he was too proud to allow the others to think that he was tired. If they weren't tired, neither was he.

"At the moment I wish that I couldn't," Sora replied, wincing as her hand throbbed again. T.K's hand didn't exactly hurt, but it was tingling. It was like he had lost all feeling in his hand, although he could still move it. Ken was keeping quiet about his 'injury' as was Cody. Both of them were pretty quiet, although Ken was loud when he wanted to be.

"If you've all stopped complaining, you can go home then," Mrs. Kamiya popped up behind the teenagers without warning. They hadn't even seen her coming.

"Mum, don't do that! You scared me," Kari's heart was pounding in her chest. She had thought that it was Pscychonomon, back for revenge. She was glad that it was only her mother.

"Well, you guys scared me. You've been in comas for nine weeks and the doctors were all confused because of all of the teenagers falling into comas and… you scared me. You and Tai are coming home right now and you're going to have a nice, long talk with your father and I about what _really_ happened," she grabbed Tai's right hand and Kari's left and, with surprising strength, began to pull them away from the group.

"Uh… we'll see you guys later, I guess," Tai called back as he was pulled along. He turned back around and followed his mother along so that he didn't have to be dragged, whilst Kari did the same. After all, being dragged was not fun.

"Uh… see you later Tai, Kari…" but the two teenagers had already disappeared. Their mother had definitely wanted them home.

"Sora, we need to talk now," Sora sighed and appealed to the heavens before she turned to greet her mother. The woman was just giving her daughter a level look and Sora turned back to her friends apologetically.

"I guess I have to go to. I'll see you all later," the other digidestined agreed and then they went their separate ways to find their parents. They knew that they had to explain what had happened, but they also knew that they had to lie. How could they tell their parents that either they themselves or their closest friends now had special powers? The only answer was that they would have to lie. After all, no one was really ready for the idea of a 'gifted' human.

"… and then the powers that we had been granted with disappeared and Pscychonomon was deleted from the world," Tai finished explaining. His parents were looking a shell-shocked from the story that they had just heard. Kari was asleep, her head on the kitchen table. Tai felt like doing the same, but he knew that his parents needed an explanation. After all, their children had been in a coma for nine weeks with no proper medical explanation. Tai's allergy to penicillin would not have caused the coma, and the hit to Kari's head would have only knocked her out for a week at most. They needed an explanation, as dodgy as it would sound.

"So you were all in T.K's dream with an evil digimon that 'experimented' on you. These 'experiments' became reality, until you defeated this digimon guy. But you still have the scar on your hand. Is that it? What about Kari, why doesn't she have something on her hand?" Tai sighed softly to himself, feeling overly exhausted. Their questions seemed to go on and on.

"She was 'experimented' on in the dream. Therefore she didn't get the scar," he hated lying to them, saying that he did not have his 'gift' anymore. His hand was still burning, although it was to a smaller degree. He tried to smother a yawn, but he did not do it properly. His mother saw it.

"I think that I get it now, but you look very tired. You should get to bed now, and so should Kari. It's really late," she tapped Kari on the shoulder and the girl made an incoherent noise. She sat up slowly, her ruby eyes filled with confusion.

"What's happening?" she asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes softly. Her father smiled.

"It's time to go to bed Honey, you're a little tired it seems," Kari smiled a little sheepishly before she got to her feet and shuffled towards her room. Tai wasn't all that far behind her in the journey to his own room.

"Goodnight kids, we'll talk more in the morning," the only reply that they got was a couple of grunts, both Tai and Kari too tired to form the words. But Tai was more exhausted than Kari, as he had used his firepower, literally. He collapsed straight onto his bed as he entered the room, not being bothered changing out of his clothes. He barely managed to close the door before he clutched his hand in pain. The burning sensation was starting to get worse again, causing him to almost writhe in agony.

_'I hope this pain stops soon or I'm going to have a major problem,'_ was his last thought before he let himself drift off into the land of sleep.

All of the digidestined that had been 'experimented' on were in the same shape as Tai. Ken felt that his hand weighed a ton, like it had extra liquid in it. Davis's hand was so cold that it was like it was freezing. Sora's hand hurt every time there was a slight movement in the air around her and Yolie's feeling of sand would not vanish. Cody's hand felt like it was stretching every two seconds and T.K's hand just tingled. Every one of these things was causing an immense amount of pain to the owner of the hand. What do these pains mean? Is it a sign of more bad things to come, or is it as Izzy had said? Let's hope so…

**_To be continued…_**

End of Chapter 8

Litanya: Well, there's another chapter. Taiora will be coming soon, very soon in fact. Please review!


	10. A Meeting

Litanya: well, another Friday night, another time to update. I do not own Digimon, or any of the characters in this fic. I am not sure exactly who they belong to, but they do not belong to me. This plot, however, is mine, so please do not copy (not that you'd want to.) The rest of this fic will probably be set around Sora and Tai, with a lot of Takari and Kenyako hints… especially Kenyako…

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 9_**

He didn't remember falling asleep, but the gentle sunshine of an early Saturday morning awoke him from his slumber. He blinked and sat up as he realised that it was morning. He was still in the clothes that he had been wearing the day before, and he was halfway over the end of the bed, where he had flopped the night before. He gasped in pain as he realised that the burning feeling in his hand was still there. He had unconsciously begun to call it the 'eternal flame of pain.' He thought that it described it extremely accurately.

"Tai, come on, breakfast is ready!" he groaned softly and let himself slide off the end of the bed. He then changed quickly, to make it look as though he had not slept in his clothes. His mother would yell at him if she knew that he had. He walked out into the kitchen and grinned at his parents, trying to make out that he was fine. They would only worry if he looked like he was in pain, and he did not want that. Kari was seated at the table, already eating her cereal. It seemed that their mother hadn't gone overboard with the cooking on their first day home. For that both Tai and Kari were glad.

"Hi Tai!" Kari chirped happily. She was happy the whole ordeal was over. For her at least, the collective dream was now only a memory, along with the titanic battle afterwards. She had no powers that could change her life and she had no memories of being 'experimented' on.

"Hey Kari, Mum, Dad," he seated himself down at the table and poured himself a bowl of Rice Bubbles. His father was reading the paper and his mother was in the kitchen, cooking herself one of the new recipes. His father answered him with a grunt and his mother just greeted him good morning from the kitchen. It was a normal morning.

"Your friend Izzy called last night after you had gone to bed. I told him you were sleeping and he apologised and told me to tell you that you should meet them in the park at 10:30am to try and figure out what happened," his mother called out from the kitchen and he almost choked on his cereal. Kari looked up from her food, one eyebrow raised.

"Are you alright Tai?" Kari asked as Tai's coughing fit came to a stop. It had taken him almost five minutes. He nodded his face still red.

"I'm fine, I just swallowed my food the wrong way," he quickly excused himself from the table and washed his dishes in the kitchen sink. Kari and his parents just watched him, thinking that he just needed some time after the shock of the fight. He escaped to his room, glad to have some space so he could try and stop his hand from hurting. He slowly straightened his hand out, cringing as the pain hit him hard. He stared at his hand, concentrating on its appearance to make sure that it looked relatively normal. Apart from the scar of his crest, his hand was perfectly fine. He sighed to himself and dropped his hand down to his side. What happened next was unexpected. The carpet of his room caught fire as his hand let off a loose ball of fire. He cried out in alarm before using his powers to quickly quench the fire with water. He hadn't even been _thinking_ about fire, not to mention commanding his hand to use it. He was afraid to point his hand anywhere, afraid that wherever he went fire would follow him. He sighed, realising how stupid he was being. He looked at the clock, and realising how little time he had, quickly got down to getting ready. After all, he had to attend, if only to keep up appearances.

She was tired. Her mother had had to drag her out of bed to get her to go to the meeting, and now that she was here, she just wanted to sleep again. It seemed that many of the digidestined felt that way because the meeting was taking place with everyone lying on the ground in the middle of the park. Tai seemed to be the person that was most awake, and he didn't look very tired either. But she knew that he was hiding something from them. She knew Tai, and he always would look out for the best of others before himself. It was his worst flaw, not that she could find many in him.

"Okay Izzy, lets get down to business. Why did you call the meeting?" Tai took charge as usual, not allowing anyone else to speak. Kari was between her brother and T.K, a pensive look on her face. It looked as though she was deep in thought about something, and it didn't take Sora a long time to guess what that was. Kari was staring at T.K, without doing a good job of hiding it either. But that didn't matter as the young blond child of Hope was too naïve to notice. He was fiddling with the grass in front of him, now and then shooting glances at Kari out of the corner of his eye. Sora smiled to herself as she realised that the two of them were completely hopeless. They knew that they loved each other, but for some reason they were too scared to act. That reminded her of another situation, but she didn't want to think about that. She continued to move her gaze along the rest of the group.

Matt was on the other side of his brother, his guitar case lying on the ground next to him. He had muttered something about having band practice to go to after the meeting and something about 'catching up' for all of the months he had missed. He was obviously worried that his band had moved on without him and found a new lead guitarist and lead singer. His mind did not seem to be on the meeting at that moment. Mimi was next to him, tying some daisies together to make a daisy chain. Although she was seventeen years old, childish activities never seemed to be 'too young' for her. Joe was next. He had what looked to be a medical studies book laid out in front of him, but his attention seemed to be more on the daisy chains than his work. Or rather, his attention was on the _girl_ _making_ the daisy chains. Sora had to suppress a giggle at the sight. As she took a closer look, it seemed that Mimi was also eyeing Joe from the corner of her eye. It seemed that romance was blooming everywhere she looked. Cody was next to Joe, the shorter boy looking pretty funny next to tall Joe. Cody was staring up at the clouds, his childish fascination with them never having faded. He still believed that his father was up there somewhere in Heaven. Cody was now ten years old, very wise for his young age.

Yolie, Cody's friend since he was born, was next. She was sixteen and the age gap between the two friends seemed huge. Yolie had actually baby-sat for Cody's mother many times and their friendship was strong. At the moment Yolie was playing a card game with Ken. It was 'Bloody Mary,' a game they had grown to love in the 'collective dream.' Ken was still losing a lot, his hand turning a bright pink colour. He just smiled at Yolie though, not making a sound so that the meeting was not disturbed. Ken always had been a considerate person, after he had stopped being the Digimon Emperor. The game continued and Sora winced, not being able to watch Ken get hit another time. Izzy was next to the pair, taking pains to make sure that he couldn't see the card game either. He had his trusty lap top sitting open on the grass in front of him, and every one in a while he would click the mouse. As Sora was sitting next to him, she could see that he was in a game of online chess. It seemed that the seventeen year old genius never seemed to want to stop thinking. It was amazing. On Sora's other side was Davis, who seemed to be sleeping. He had been the last one to arrive at the meeting, arriving half an hour late. His apology had been that he had slept in and his sister had forgotten to wake him up. Just after he had arrived, Tai had spoken. The meeting had now officially begun.

"Well, I was just thinking that last night we all just disappeared before I could explain what had happened correctly. We also left before I could get some details on this that would clear everything up," everyone stopped and listened to the conversation now that it had actually started to get interesting. Sora found herself listening carefully to the talk, and she stopped analyzing the people around her.

"What do you need to know?" T.K asked. After all, it had been _his_ coma that had started it all.

"Well, there is one thing that has been puzzling me about all of this. It was T.K's coma that started it all, but Tai was the first to be 'experimented' on. Wouldn't it have made more sense for T.K to have been 'experimented' on first and then make him get Tai?" there was a small pause, before T.K answered.

"It's easy to explain, I think. I was controlling the coma to a point. There was no way that I would be as sadistic as that, but I was controlling the characters in a way. Everyone was acting as I had perceived them when I was eight. That was why Tai would have been captured because he would have negotiated the safety of everyone else before he thought of himself. That was how I perceived him to be back then and I still do now. That would be why Tai was 'experimented' on before me," the blond seemed to explain it easily, as if his thoughts had dwelt on that very question.

"That does seem logical," Ken agreed, absently stroking his now bruised hand as if that was making it feel better, "Perception is an important part of dreams. But I don't think that T.K was the only one that was controlling the characters. I know that most of us think that way about Tai, but I think that there were a few people that were not acting as T.K had perceived them. For example, you did not know me when you were eight. Therefore you could not have been controlling my actions, or what Yolie, Cody and Davis were doing. Besides, you were yourself in the 'collective dream' and in the 'Real' world too for most of the time that Tai, Yolie, Entier and I were being 'experimented' on. Therefore how could you control all of us?" That was a good question. Joe thought about it, but he couldn't come up with anything.

"Yes, I suppose you're right. Maybe my sub-conscious was controlling the start of the dream and then everyone came in and added a part of themselves to it. That is probably the best explanation for what happened," T.K mused, unconsciously playing with a few leaves of grass.

"Yes… I think that that is correct. It would make sense that way. Now the 'collective dream'…" Izzy went on to explain the effects that the 'collective dream' might have on people. It was a long and boring explanation and Sora found that she just could not keep her eyes open…

She jumped awake as Davis poked her right shoulder. She looked at him and he put a finger to his lips, indicating that she should not say anything.

"And that wraps up the explanation. It's pretty prodigious, isn't it?" everyone mumbled their sleepy agreements, trying their best not to yawn. Sora found it a miracle that Davis had been awake to awaken her. Tai was the only one other than Izzy that did not look like he was about to fall asleep. She wondered how he could brave one of Izzy's long speeches.

"Okay, so that explains it, but is there anything else you want to know? By the sounds of it you didn't have a few answers," Sora was even more amazed. Tai sounded like he had actually _listened_ to Izzy's speech and _understood_. That was a major feat for anyone to accomplish. Izzy didn't look too surprised; he was busy sorting something out on his lap top. The others however were all looking at Tai as if he had three heads. The thick-skinned leader didn't seem to notice though. Sora winced a little as a small breeze began to blow. Her hand was still affected by the wind, and was causing her a lot of pain. She didn't want to tell the others in case she sounded crazy. None of the others seemed to be having a problem with their hands, so she didn't want to make a fuss.

"Actually I was wondering if you guys still had your 'gifts'," Izzy admitted, still typing away at his lap top. Yolie's facial expression became unsure and Sora didn't know what to say either. Lucky for them Tai decided to answer the question.

"Yeah, they've gone. I think that they were only there to help us destroy Pscychonomon, and then they just disappeared. The only reminders we have now are the scars on our hands," Tai said smoothly. Sora figured that he just wanted everyone to believe that they were normal again. She thought that that was why he had lied.

"Okay, so now you guys are back to normal. That's good," to Sora's surprise she heard evident relief in Mimi's voice. It was almost as if the thought of their powers scared the pink-haired girl. Maybe that was why Tai had lied. Sora had no idea why the child of Sincerity had any reason to be scared, but there was no doubt that she was.

"Does this mean that the meeting is over? I'm sorry to have to rush off, but I promised my grandfather that I would go to kendo practice now. I'm really sorry," Cody apologised and stood up, getting ready to leave.

"That's okay Cody, I have to leave too," Matt also stood up, grabbing his guitar as he did so.

"Well, I guess that we should end the meeting here. If there's anything else we can just phone and schedule a meeting. We're basically going to see each other at school… wait a minute, the exams start in two weeks, don't they?" Tai's eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates as this realization hit him.

"Yeah, but don't worry, you'll do okay."

"No, it's not that. It's… something else. Anyway, Kari and I had better go. We promised our mother that we'd be home for lunch and she might freak out if we don't get there in time." And without another word he left. Sora frowned. She had known Tai for a long time and she had never known him to be this… weird.

_'It must be an after effect of the 'collective dream,'_ she surmised before she too turned and left to go home…

**To be continued…**

End of chapter 9

Litanya: Sorry for the short chapter. I was going to continue but I have a really bad headache and need to go smash my head against a wall somewhere. Please review if you feel like it, but please don't flame me for my choice of couples. Really, I believe that that is low. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	11. Discovering

Litanya: Okay, I'm going to update again. I do not own Digimon, but I do own this plot and some characters.

**_An Old Box_**

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**_Chapter 10_**

Tai slowly tipped the pile of clothes artfully onto the carpet in his room, making sure that they covered the burn mark that he had just created. It had been a week since the digidestined had last met together for their meeting and Tai was still having fire troubles. At odd and completely random moments his hand let off a ball of fire. Luckily though, it only seemed to happen when he was alone. Unfortunately that was when he was by himself in his room. To cover up the burn marks in the carpets the usually messy leader had had to mess his room up even more. Clothes now completely hid every single burn mark on the floor. The only problem with that was that there were so many marks. He estimated that if he burned another two different places, he would not be able to cover them up and make it look natural. He would have to try something else.

"Tai, can I come in?" he quickly ran to his desk and sat down, picking up a book as he did so. He now looked like he had been studying the whole time.

"Yeah, come in Kari," the door opened and the small girl slipped into the room. One of the first things she did was snort in disgust.

"Tai, I know that your exams are important, but that doesn't mean that you can mess your room up even more than usual. I'm glad we have our own rooms," he swiveled his chair around so that he was facing her and gave her his infamous 'Kamiya Grin.'

"Well, humans did evolve from the apes. I guess I'm a good example of it," Kari laughed and pushed some of his junk away with her foot. Tai felt his brain trying to find an explanation, but she didn't see any of the burn marks, for which he was thankful for.

"I agree whole-heartedly. I just came in here because I'm worried. You've _never_ studied for this long before, even when exams have been on. Apart from school and dinner you have been locked up in your room for the past week. You _have_ to come out sometime! Come and play a game of Monopoly with me or something," he raised his eyebrow, as if calculating what to do.

"But Kari, these are the exams that are going to change my life. I _have_ to do well in them. That's why I'm studying," but he didn't believe a word he was saying. Kari seemed to think that what he was saying was genuine and that surprised him. Kari had been able to see through all of the lies he had ever told her before, but now she believed him. Maybe this 'collective dream' had affected him a lot more than he had known about. It had already basically ruined his life.

"Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. I'll see you later then," she left the room, allowing Tai to relax again. The 'eternal flame of pain' was still burning, but he had almost grown used to it. The things that he was most worried about were the bouts of fire that poured from his hand. They were never far from his mind and he was always wondering when they were going to come. They came at least once a day, and most times in a flurry. It was getting harder and harder for him to cover it up. He looked back down at his book and yelped quietly as he realised that it was on fire.

_'Stupid dream… How can I stay around people when I could hurt them without thinking? What if I accidentally hit my sister, or my parents or my friends? I… I shouldn't be here. I don't belong anymore. This world is for humans and I am obviously not one anymore. I need to find out why this all happened, why we were chosen and what we have to do now. All I know is that I cannot live here for much longer. I am too dangerous,'_ he doused his book with water before shaking the ashes out of his window. The floated to the ground, separating as the wind rushed to greet them. As he watched them scatter Tai could only think of how the ashes reflected his life.

"I win again!" it was, of course, Yolie who let out this triumphant cry. She grabbed the pack and expertly split it. The card facing the top was the King of Hearts.

"Fourteen again? Why oh why did I agree to play?" Ken cried out melodramatically, bracing his hand for another attack. Yolie just smirked a little sadistically.

"Don't worry, you love this game," Yolie reassured him. She was about to gather the cards to hit him when a burst of water cascaded onto the floor from Ken's hand.

"It happens to you too?" Yolie asked, surprised that she was not alone with this strange behavior. She had had to brush all of the sand, the sand that had come out of her hand, out of her room that morning. It had been quite a pile.

"You mean you have little bursts like that?"

"Yeah, and from what I just saw, you do too," as if to illustrate her point a pile of sand came out of her hand just as another half a litre of water came from Ken's.

"I'm scared," Ken admitted, his pink eyes staring intently at his hand, as though wishing that the nightmare would stop, "This isn't normal. It hasn't happened at school yet, but what if it does?"

"I'm scared too. If people see that we can do this, they will be scared of us. They will call us freaks and they will not stop until we die. They will never believe that this wasn't our fault," tears came to the yellow eyes of the young girl as she realised that the future was not going to be pleasant.

"Hey, if this is happening to you, is it happening to the others? Imagine what Tai and Davis would be going through… Tai would be setting fire to everything, whilst Davis would be turning everything to ice. T.K's 'gift' would not be too bad as his is a healing gift. But Sora and the others would be like us. Why does everything seem to be so bad at the moment?" there was a silence after Ken had spoken. Neither of them could answer his question. In silence Yolie began dealing the cards out again, forgetting all about the 'punishment' she was supposed to give Ken for losing.

Sora shivered and drew the heater nearer, wishing that the room wasn't so cold. In truth the room was warm, but a cold wind was blowing in the room. Sora wasn't sure if the wind around her was from an open window somewhere or if it was coming from herself. Wherever it was coming from, it was making her cold and it hurt her. Even as she drew the heater closer, the wind just stopped suddenly. What had been an almost freezing breeze before had become the warm air coming from the heater, and she was hit with a wave of air that was so hot it was almost burning.

_'Why does that always happen?'_ she pushed the heater back to its original position and switched it off. The room was warm enough now.

"Sora honey, are you home?" the girl heard her mother put her keys down on the bench before she answered.

"Yeah, I'm in my room."

"I thought that you would be at the park on a beautiful day like this. You haven't been going out enough these days. Go on; go to the park now, just for a walk. It won't hurt you," Mrs. Takenouchi appeared at the doorway to Sora's room and the red-haired girl sighed quietly to herself.

"Alright, I suppose that you are right. I'll be back in about an hour or so," she grabbed a light jacket from out of her cupboard and rushed past her mother before she could say anything else. For some reason she just wanted to be alone.

She wandered alone through the park, seeing the people and the flowers, but not really taking them in. Children wove around her in their games, but she took no notice of them and as a result, she almost crashed into many of them without stopping her pace. The people that saw her just took her for another stressed student about to take her exams, but exams were the last thing on her mind. She was worried about them, but she was more worried about the chill of the wind that always seemed to follow her around.

"Sora!" she looked around to see who it was that had called to her, only realising then that she had been gone for longer than an hour.

"Oh, hi T.K. What brings you here?" the younger boy lived in an apartment further out from the city and to see him in the park was a rare occasion.

"Oh, I'm just here to meet Kari," his cheeks turned pink. He was obviously embarrassed to admit that he was meeting the girl, even though everyone knew that they would soon begin dating. Sora could not remember if they had begun to date, or if they were still just friends.

"Ah, okay. Does Tai know that you're going to meet her?" it was a joke between the digidestined that Tai would hunt down _anyone_ who tried to get close to his little sister. Tai had actually chased T.K the whole way around the park once, just to scare him into thinking twice about trying to date Kari. They had no idea why Tai was so overprotective. But Sora surmised that Tai was only trying to make sure that T.K was willing to do anything for Kari, and the boy had proved that many times before.

"Yeah, that's the strange thing. Tai hasn't been threatening me lately. Every time that I have been there he has just been in his room 'studying'. He doesn't even come to check on us every so often like he used to. It's kind of… worrying if you know what I mean," T.K pushed his white hat back so that it wasn't covering his eyes anymore. Sora hadn't even noticed it drop.

"Hmm… I know what you mean. I'll have to go talk to him. I have only seen him at school and even then I've been busy with tennis and extra classes and he's been at soccer or different classes. Do you mind if I accompany you to their place?"

"No of course I don't mind Sora. It will be an opportunity to catch up. I feel as though I haven't seen you for ages. What have you been up to? Studying a lot I presume?"

"No, not really… I've been going to extra classes, but other than that I haven't really done anything else. My mind has been elsewhere," they were sauntering along towards the Kamiya's apartment, enjoying catching up, "What about you T.K? Have you been seeing Kari a lot lately?" T.K blushed again at Sora's teasing comment.

"Yeah, I have. Davis seems to have finally backed off her and Tai isn't being his usual overprotective self. I've been taking advantage of it whilst I can," they had arrived at the Kamiya's apartment. It wasn't all that far from the park. As they stood outside the door they heard a noise that scared them. It was the fire alarm. A moment later Kari and their mother burst out of the front door, crashing into Sora and T.K.

"Kari, what's happening?"

"There-there's a fire. It's coming from Tai's room, and he hasn't come out of there. We knocked on his door, but we couldn't hear anything. Tai's going to die!" she sobbed hysterically. Without a second thought Sora rushed through the open doorway and into the burning apartment…

_To be continued…_

End of Chapter 10

Litanya: Sorry this chapter took so long… I've had writer's block, as you can probably tell by this second-rate chapter. Sorry I took so long to update Steph . Oh well, now I have. Please feel free to review, not review or do what you like really. I'll see you all next chapter I hope .


	12. Fire Danger

Litanya: Okay, I'm updating, I'm updating! Thank you to EVERYONE who has read this fic, even if you haven't reviewed. I appreciate it Anyway, I do not own digimon.

This chapter is dedicated to Steph and everyone who has reviewed this fic. I love all of you guys! 

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 11_**

Sora coughed quietly as she raced through the living room. The room was slowly filling with smoke and she could barely see ten paces in front of her. She coughed again, the smoke seeming to settle deep inside her lungs. She paused for a moment before she lifted her left hand and blew the smoke away. What she saw frightened her. Flames were dancing over the wooden furniture only half a meter away from where she was standing. Further on ahead, flames had already burnt the door to Tai's room down to its hinges. She let out a small, frightened cry, but her thoughts were only on Tai. Kari had said that he had not come out of his room. His room now seemed to be all in ashes, but she could not see it completely as there was still a blanket of smoke hiding parts of the room from her view.

"Tai are you okay?" her voice cracked and she realised that she had inhaled too much smoke. There was no answer, though she thought that she heard a soft coughing come from the back of his room, "Tai please answer me!" She could hear the desperation in her voice. Still there was no reply, but there was a banging sound as though someone had crashed into a wall. She took a step forward but the flames seemed to jump out at her. She cried out as the tongue of the flames burnt the back of her right hand. From the distant room she heard another bang, and this time she saw a tanned hand move on the ground.

"Tai is that you?" again there was no reply, but she thought she saw a figure rise up out of the smoke that was still covering the room. Either she saw the figure or she was hallucinating. She couldn't move forward because of the flames and she had no idea how Tai could get out. Flames barred the only exit from the room and unless he could walk through flames, it did not look as though he was going to escape. She could faintly hear the sounds of a fire engine in the background, but she knew that it would get there too late. Then a thought occurred to her.

_'Wait… why don't I just use my 'gift' to put out the fire?'_ she could not believe that this idea had not occurred to her before. She lifted her left hand and waited. No water came out. She waited expectantly, but still nothing happened.

_'Maybe T.K can help me!'_ she whirled around to leave the apartment and get the boy when she was confronted by another wall of flames. Whilst she had been standing around the flames had moved so that they now surrounded her. She knew that there must be a lot of smoke, but she hadn't noticed it in her concern for her best friend. Even as she noticed the flames, she still could not smell the smoke, and her lungs did not ache. Either her lungs had gone numb with the inhalation of too much smoke or her 'gift' with air was still working and keeping her safe. But even her 'gift' of wind could not help her now. She collapsed to her knees as she realised that there was no escape…

T.K felt guilty. As soon as Sora had heard that Tai was still in the burning apartment, she had rushed in to help. He had heard the news too, but he had been paralyzed. He had not been able to chase after the girl and when he had finally gotten a hold of himself, flames had already begun to dance in the doorway to the apartment. Instead he turned to comforting the distraught girl that was his best friend. Kari could not control her tears. It was her brother that was in there and T.K knew that nothing he could say would comfort her until her brother came out of there alive. So instead he wrapped her in a large hug and listened as she poured out her feelings.

"He was studying for his exams. I'd gone in to see him before, but he was so busy… and I didn't think to even say I loved him. I just begged him to play Monopoly because I thought that he was staying in his room too much. I just gave up because he said that the exams were important and the last words I said to him were 'I'll see you later then.' I'll see you later then! Why couldn't I have said something more useful, or told him that even though he was an annoying brother, I loved him? Why couldn't I have persisted in my demands for him to come out of his room? If I had done that, then he wouldn't be in there right now, either dead or fighting for his life!" Kari was sobbing so hard that T.K could barely hear what she was saying. He could grasp the main idea of it though.

"Kari, this is not your fault! Tai was studying; these exams are important for him. How could you know that there was going to be a fire? Unless you are psychic you would have had no way of telling. You cannot blame yourself for what is happening! Tai will probably be fine. He's strong; you of all people know that. He can get through this and he will. Both he and Sora will be fine and everything will be okay again," it was partly to comfort Kari that he said this, and but also to comfort himself. He wanted everything to turn out all right, just as much as Kari did. After all, both Tai and Sora were his friends.

"But what if it isn't T.K? We have to be prepared for the worst as well as the best. Tai taught me that. Even if we wish as hard as we can for them to live, we have to accept that they might die too. And that's what scares me… the accepting part. I do not want to even think about that. But I'm going to have to," her sobs subsided a little as she said this, making her speech clearer.

"But that doesn't mean that we have to believe the worst. We have to acknowledge that it may happen, but we cannot lose hope! Hope has never let us down before. When we were in the Digital World fighting Piedmon we refused to give up hope and we won. If we give up hope now, then both Tai and Sora are lost. But if we believe in them, they will be fine. All we have to do is believe," she looked up and locked her eyes with his. He could see that she was confused, uncertain of what to do. She was blaming herself and he did not like that. Still, he kept silent, knowing that he would not be able to make her believe that it was not her fault.

"I guess," but she sounded doubtful. He just wrapped his arms tighter around her and held back his own doubts.

"They'll be fine…"

Davis was walking down the street between his apartment and the building the others lived in when he ran into three people running the other way. And when he ran into them, he bowled them over.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't…" he trailed off as he saw who they were, "Ken, Yolie, and Cody. What's up?" They had agitated expressions on their faces, as though they were worried about something that was right in front of them.

"Davis, we were looking for you!" Yolie sounded relieved, as though something that had been bothering her had been solved. Ken's face did not change, and Cody's face seemed to grow even more apprehensive.

"What's going on? You all look like someone died or something," Davis tried to joke, but the others did not seem amused.

"Has your 'gift' been working when you haven't wanted it?" Ken asked, unconsciously tracing the crest of Kindness on his hand. Davis's grin slipped a little.

"Sometimes… it usually happens when I'm alone in my room. My pen freezes to my hand or the table, or my food becomes frozen as I am about to eat it. But it is usually small things. It doesn't matter all that much. Why? Are you guys experiencing the same problem?" There was a series of nods. As if to demonstrate the problem Cody's hand, which was wrapped around a book, caused the book to stretch out so that it was almost twice as big as it had been, before snapping back to the size it had started at.

"That's been happening a lot lately. Every day my 'gift' has been working oftener than it should and I'm finding that I cannot use my 'gift' for anything other than stretching things most of the time," Cody explained, quickly placing the book in his other hand, "It is as if our 'gifts' are not meant for this world; as though someone carefully planned this out so that we would stay in the Digital World forever or something. It scares me."

"Yeah, this is scaring me too. But the person I am most worried about is Tai. His 'gift' is fire. What if he burns someone, or he makes something explode?" Yolie had been worried about both Davis and Tai, but now she had seen the younger leader, she realised that his 'gift' was not really a big problem as of yet. But for some reason she had a sinking feeling in her stomach that Tai's 'gift' was going out of hand. After all, he had had his for longer and therefore it would have had a longer time to grow and develop.

"Kari mentioned that Tai was spending more time in his room. Maybe this is the reason why," Davis mused. He himself had been spending more time in his room lately, so maybe Tai had been doing the same thing.

"Really? Kari never mentioned that to me. Then again, I haven't really been around much anyway," Yolie admitted, feeling a little bad. She was, after all, Kari's female best friend, and she hadn't been around for her lately.

"She didn't mention it to me either, but I overheard her talking to T.M. Out of all of us that were 'experimented on' I'd say that T.K has it the easiest. His 'gift' is of healing and so he wouldn't have to be worried about hurting anyone accidentally. In fact, he would be healing them instead. It's not fair how T.J. always gets the breaks," Davis grumbled.

"Guys, I have a feeling that we shouldn't be talking about this in the middle of the street. Why don't we head over to Tai's place and talk about it there? Tai may have a better idea of what is going on as he was 'Master's' first 'experiment' so he may have been given extra information," Ken suggested, shifting uncomfortably. He had an urge to be moving, but he had no idea what was driving him forward.

"Yeah, that's a good idea Ken. We need to have a brainstorming session. If we get lucky again we might find T.K on the way," Cody agreed and the group started to make their way towards the Kamiya's apartment.

Halfway around the world, in the city of Melbourne in Australia, Entier was holding a meeting with the small group of Victorian Digidestined. It was a small group of three girls and two guys. Every one of them had been 'experimented on' and their 'gifts' ranged from the very simple to the very complex.

"So Entier, what's this about? Is it about the 'gifts' malfunctioning?" Steph, the digidestined of Strength asked calmly, settling herself down next to her boyfriend, Josh, who was also a digidestined.

"Yeah, I guess that you could say that. Have you all been experiencing periods where your 'gift' will not stop working?"

"Yeah, I have. My brothers think that they're going crazy because things just disappear in front of them," Emma, digidestined of Nonsense explained, swinging herself on the swing slowly. Melissa, digidestined of Compassion, agreed with a nod of her head. She was busy brushing the flour off her clothes. She worked at a bakery and she always seemed to be covered in flour after working.

"I have too, but at least our 'gifts' aren't very dangerous. I mean I can only communicate with animals. I don't really think that that is going to hurt anything other than my sanity," Josh joked, although there was an undertone in his voice that suggested he was being partly serious.

"Yeah, and I only change the appearance of things. And Steph can move faster than light and Entier can zap people with electricity… hey wait! Entier, wasn't your 'gift' in the 'collective dream' something to do with ice?" there was a short silence after Melissa had spoken.

"Yes, it was. But before we left the 'collective dream' I bumped into Davis. Something happened… we were near a blue pole, and… well we somehow managed to swap 'gifts.' I inherited his 'gift' with electricity and he got mine for ice," the explanation was not what they wanted, but it was good enough.

"Emma!" Steph and Josh cried out as the bench underneath them disappeared into thin air. The girl on the swings just shrugged, her deep purple eyes switching between the two victims.

"Sorry. As I said before, I keep on making these things disappear. It's not my fault that I have the crest of Nonsense. I don't even know how I earned it anyway…" there was a silence as Emma drifted off into a place where she was 'normal'. It was easy to see why she had earned the crest she had.

"O…Kay. I guess that is an example of what is happening. Our 'gifts' may not be so dangerous, but I know for a fact that the Japanese destined have 'gifts' that are really quite dangerous. Their leader's 'gift' is fire and I have seen him battle with it, when he had to. He is capable of setting the whole continent of Australia on fire at the same time if he felt the need. Davis has his ice and Ken has water. Those three combined could destroy their country in a minute if they got out of control."

"But how can _we_ do anything? We're halfway around the world and we have no way of getting through to them," Steph argued logically, pointing out the impossibility of them getting to Japan.

"We could go through the Digital World," Melissa suggested quietly, though her green eyes shined in excitement. Melissa really loved her digimon and Emma also thought that she had her eyes set on one of the Japanese Destined.

"We could, but the gate is closed and we haven't been able to open it for ages," Josh argued, agreeing with his girlfriend. They both knew that it was physically impossible to get to Japan in such a short time.

"We wouldn't have to use the Digital World," Emma rejoined the conversation, back from her little world.

"And how could we do that?" Entier wanted to know. He secretly agreed with Steph and Josh, knowing that there was no way to get them there.

"Have you forgotten what my 'gift' is? I could take us all the way to Japan with my eyes closed if I wanted. It isn't all that hard. We might just have to take a couple of stopovers and then we could be right on the doorsteps of the Destined over in Japan," the others just exchanged glances.

"Emma, I think that you can go back to your dream world now. That is _never_ going to a) work and b) happen. It's not that I don't trust you, but… it would be too hard for you to carry all five of us to Japan with a 'gift' that you have only been using on objects," Entier pointed out, terrified of the thought of being teleported to a place that the girl had never seen. They could end up in the North Pole with Emma's wandering thoughts. If it had been Steph or Melissa then he may have considered it, but true to her crest, Emma was too nonsensical.

"Eh, okay it was only a suggestion. If we can't think of anything else, we can always try it," she then disappeared off to her own world, still swinging back and forth slightly with the wind.

"Entier, we are not going to be able to find a way over there. Face it; it's impossible. It's late now and we're all tired. Maybe if we go home and get some sleep, we may be able to think better in the morning. Don't you think so?" Entier had to agree with Josh. They would not be able to think anything else up that night.

"Yeah, Josh is right. We should all get some sleep and then meet back here in the morning."

"I can't; I have classes and so does Steph. We don't do VCE like you guys, so we didn't have exams this week. That means that we don't get the day off," as soon as she mentioned school, Emma seemed to be more serious.

"Fine, we'll meet tomorrow afternoon then, after school. I'd forgotten that IB classes were still on. Does everyone agree to that?" there was a chorus of 'yes' and then they all went their separate ways. Emma disappeared into thin air, obviously using her 'gift' to transport herself home, whilst Josh and Steph left together. Melissa wandered off in the other direction and Entier was left alone in the park.

_'Tai, Yolie, Ken and the others… I hope that you are all okay, wherever you are.'_

He was sure that he was dying. He knew that there was a fire, but he was not being burnt. He could feel the flames against his skin, but they were doing nothing but touching him. His 'gift' with fire was making fire ineffective on him. The scary thing was that he was still dying. It felt like a force he could not see or feel on the outside was smothering him on the inside, stealing the oxygen from his lungs. And he could barely breathe. At the same time, he felt fine. From what he had learnt at school he knew that it was the smoke that was suffocating him. And smoke was something to do with air, a thing that Tai could not feel after being 'experimented on.'

He had awoken again from his panic when he had heard Sora's voice calling his name. Somehow he had managed to climb to his feet and walk a few steps, but he had then crashed into the wall. Now he was back on the floor, listening intently for Sora to speak again. He knew that she had called to him twice, but he had not heard anything again. It had only been a minute since she had spoken, but in a fire, a minute is all that it takes for a life to disappear.

He had tried to call out to her the second time that she had called out, but he had been unable to as his voice had refused to work. The smoke must have entered his throat and done something to his vocal chords. He pushed himself up so that he was on his hands and knees and then he finally managed to stand up again. He had to put his hand against the wall so he wouldn't fall over, but at least he was in a position to move. He raised his head so that he was looking out of his bedroom door. The flickering flames danced around in a circle, as though they were doing a victory dance. In between the crests of the flames, Tai found Sora. She was staring at the flames as though hypnotized. He tried to call out her name, but again his voice failed.

_'Stupid smoke, now I can't even tell her that I'm alright. At least Kari and mum got out okay. Now all I have to do is make sure that I can get Sora out… and myself of course,'_ he took a step forward and almost sunk back to the ground. The smoke was suffocating him, taking all of his energy. He managed to make his knees stay straight, but it took an effort. If he was going to get out of there, he was going to have to make it fast. He took another step and his foot landed on something that crunched loudly. Sora's head whipped up.

"Tai are you alright?" she could not see past the flames around her, so she did not see him in his room, slowly coming towards her. And he could not reply, due to the smoke. Tai continued to walk towards the flames slowly, taking what seemed like hours to reach his bedroom door. Or what was left of it anyway. He didn't have a wall to support him once he left his room, so he looked for anything that would be able to keep him upright without the walls help. On the ground, a little out of his reach, was a long metal pole that had once supported his bookshelf.

_'That'll do… I just need something to help me walk, that's all. Now if I can reach it…'_ he put his tongue between his teeth and leant out from the wall, trying desperately to reach the pole. He eventually grasped the top of it, but the problem was that he was overbalanced and he crashed back down to the floor, landing painfully on his left side. His left arm was very weak; he had already broken it three times in his life. When he landed he heard a soft crack and his arm began to ache dully. Not only was he suffocating, but now he had also broken his arm. Great.

"Tai are you okay?" she hadn't given up the hope that it was him that was crashing around. Tai could not stand the note of desperation that was in her voice and he quickly gathered up his courage before he raised himself to his hands and knees once again. His broken arm shook badly, not being able to hold up the weight, but he transferred most of his weight to the other arm. Then, as quickly as he could, he stood up, grasping the metal pole for balance. Once he was up again he forgot about his broken arm. He would deal with that later. Now his only goal was to help Sora out of the blazing inferno. He took small steps, using the pole as a walking stick. He found that it was easier that using the wall because he could actually hold onto the stick, instead of just pushing against a wall.

He made his way to the flames that were blocking his way from his best friend. Taking a deep breath, and then letting it go, he stepped into the flames. If his 'gift' was keeping the flames from hurting him, he was going to find out…

The four teenagers looked with amazement as smoke poured out from the third floor of the apartment building Kari and Tai lived in.

"Isn't that the floor which Kari lives on?" Ken asked Davis, who had been to the Kamiyas apartment a lot to talk to Tai. Davis's face was grim as he surveyed the scene.

"Yeah and if I have guessed correctly, I'd say that that is their apartment. Tai's 'gift' must have gone out of control!" they didn't say another word as they rushed up the stairs to the level the apartment was on.

"Kari, T.K!" Yolie cried as she came to a stop in front of them, "What happened?" She wasn't all that surprised to see Kari crying in T.K's arms, but she was surprised that they were so close.

"A fire started up in Tai's room. Kari and their mother managed to escape, but Tai's still in there. When Sora heard that, she raced in there to see if she could help. Neither Tai nor Sora have come out," T.K explained. Ken bit his lip.

"I'll go in to help them. I know that I can. The rest of you should stay here," without another word he plunged into the burning apartment, knowing that he could put the fires out with his 'gift' of water. The others just had to stand around and wait, hoping that the three friends would come out of there alive…

**_To be continued…_**

End of Chapter 11

Litanya: There we are folks, another chapter. Please don't kill me for the cliff-hanger, I had to do it! And Steph, you are now one of my characters… I hope you don't mind too much.


	13. Decision

Litanya: Much strangeness may come about in this chapter, mainly due to the fact that I was up until 5am partying after my school's formal. That was just a warning. Please forgive me for any typos etc. I do not own Digimon. The only things I own in this fic are the plot and the characters Entier, Emma, Steph, Josh and Melissa.

**_An Old Box_**

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**_Chapter 12_**

Emma was bored. The digidestined of Nonsense was sitting in her bedroom listening to the radio, but she did not even register that music was playing. She could vaguely hear her brothers arguing over who got to play the computer, but for some reason she did not feel like getting involved. That, in itself, was a miracle. Usually she would have been arguing with them, taking her older brother's side in a war against her little brother. But now she was just… worried. What Entier had said about the Japanese destined was very true. Any one of them could wreak havoc across the islands of Japan without being able to stop. Normally she would not have been worried about it, but there was a little feeling in her stomach that was telling her that something was wrong.

"Emma, are you doing your homework?"

"Yes Mum, just doing my History essay," she lied, knowing that her mother would not bother her if she was 'doing homework.'

"Okay then," she heard her mother's footsteps retreat down the hall before she made up her mind.

_'Entier won't care if I just go and check on them. Who knows, maybe I will have to save them from themselves,'_ for some reason Emma seemed extremely anxious to keep on the good side of Entier. It wasn't only because he was the strongest of all of the Victorian Digidestined, but also because she genuinely liked his personality. She loved all of the Victorian digidestined to pieces, although she wasn't entirely sure about Josh, but for some reason she always had to try to please Entier. She was musing about this when she realised that she would have to leave then if she wanted to get to Japan and back before dinner. She turned off the radio and within a second she was gone.

As soon as Ken entered the apartment, his lungs almost collapsed due to the amount of smoke in the room. He had only taken one small breath of the smoky air, but it felt like it was sticking to his lungs and squeezing all of the air out. He had a coughing fit that lasted for about two minutes before he managed to continue weaving his way through the furniture at the front of the apartment. He put all of the flames that he saw out with his 'gift' but the smoke was too much for him. His throat was burning and his lungs were begging for pure, plain oxygen. His coughing fits had grown so badly that he had to collapse to the ground each time to have the energy to continue. After he had been in the apartment for no more than seven minutes, he could not get himself back up off the ground to continue on. He hadn't even seen Sora or Tai and although he had tried calling out to them, he hadn't been able to make a sound. He suddenly thought that it wasn't a good idea to have gone into the apartment in the first place after all.

He crawled along on his stomach and quenched another set of flames.

"Ken is that you?" he looked up and saw Sora seated behind the flames he had just put out. By her side lay an unconscious Tai. Al least, he _thought_ that it was Sora and Tai. His voice refused to work so he could not answer her verbally. Instead he just crawled over to her, happy to have achieved his goal at last. Now all they had to do was get out of the inferno. That is, if they could…

The room into which she had transported herself was covered in smoke.

_'Oh oh, it looks like Entier was right when he said that they had dangerous powers,'_ Emma thought to herself. She quickly transported herself to the next room of the apartment before the smoke could settle in her lungs.

"Tai are you here?"

"Over here!" it was a girl's voice, but Emma transported herself there right away. Instinct was telling her that it was okay to use her 'gift' here. When she opened her eyes after 'teleporting' Emma found herself standing in a circle of flames. Two boys and one girl were on the floor in front of her, although one of the boys seemed to be unconscious.

"I'll get you all out of here," Emma was concerned at how injured the three teenagers looked to be. She was getting ready to transport them out when the girl spoke.

"No! There are people standing just outside the doorway, waiting for firefighters to come or for us to come out. If you just transport us out of there then they will know that we still have our 'gifts.'"

"Good point. I'll transport the three of you to the door, and then you'll be able to walk out. Will your unconscious friend be okay?" Emma could not recognise any of them because of the smoke, but she could tell that it was someone that she knew. Or at least she thought that it was.

"Yeah, he'll be fine. He has just inhaled too much smoke. Ken and I can make sure that he gets out alright. Thank you for your help."

"No problem. I'll transport you guys and then I'll go back to Australia and pick up Entier. Then we'll come back and we can all talk or something," Emma concentrated hard on getting them all to the front door. Within seconds the job was done.

"Thanks again. We'll see you later I suppose," Sora thanked her again, but Emma had already disappeared. Wordlessly, as Ken could not speak, the pair grabbed one of Tai's arms each and dragged him out of the apartment.

"Tai, Sora, Ken!" Kari cried as they emerged, exhausted, from the apartment. She immediately freed herself from T.K and raced to where Sora and Ken had placed her brother, before they too had dropped to the ground, "Is Tai okay? Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, Tai's fine, I think. He just inhaled a bit too much smoke," she winced as the wind brushed against a large burn on her left arm. The skin there was blistering and peeling and she only realised then how much her arm had been damaged. T.K looked down at the older girl, his gold eyes seeing the large burn and the pain that Sora was in.

"Sora look at your arm!" Yolie exclaimed before she realised that she should not have said anything. There was bound to be an investigation into how the fire had started and once the Police realised that a boy who had been in the room in which the fire had started had not been burnt at all, questions would be raised.

"Its fine," Sora murmured quietly, biting her tongue to keep from crying out. All that mattered was that they were all safe and going to live.

"What about you Ken? You haven't said a word the entire time," Davis pointed out, surprised at the lack of speech from their pink-eyed friend.

"He's suffering from inhaling too much smoke too. It attacks the voice-box and so he can't speak at the moment," Ken nodded in agreement with Sora's explanation and the conversation lapsed into silence. T.K bent down next to Sora's arm, grabbing it in his left arm as though he were just testing to see if it was alright. Within minutes the pain had disappeared from her arm, although the appearance of a bad burn still shone through.

"Thank you T.K," Sora whispered casually to him, as though she was asking him the time. He smiled and looked at his watch.

"It's two o'clock in the afternoon Sora. You were only in there for about half an hour I think," he knew how to play the game. They had to lie to protect themselves from persecution, because if people found out about their 'gifts' then they would be hunted down and killed for being 'dangerous.'

"Ken, Yolie, Sora, Davis, Cody and Kari it's nice to see you again," they whirled around to see who it was that was talking to them. It was Entier, with Emma walking beside him.

"Hey Entier, Emma," Davis greeted them, nodding at them in turn, "What brings you to Japan?"

"Well, I have always wanted to come here and so we decided to come here on a trip around the country. We're in Odaiba today and so we thought that we would stop in for a little chat," Emma replied cheerfully, managing to catch Sora's eye. She winked quickly and went on happily, "Japan is such a great country! I mean, Australia is better but the history of Japan is intriguing compared to young Australia's. That's what makes this place such a great holiday destination." Emma certainly knew how to waffle on to discard all suspicions that the listeners may have about her.

"Yeah, Emma and I have only been here for two days and we have already seen some amazing sights… hey, what happened here anyway?" Entier acted out his surprise well, as if he had only just realised that three of the teenagers before him were injured.

"There was a fire in our apartment. Tai was trapped in there for a while, and Sora and Ken went in to help get him out. They're all injured now in some way, so we have to wait for the ambulance to come," Kari explained, her small hand wrapped around her brother's. She was desperate to see him wake up.

"That terrible!" Emma exclaimed, her eyes as round as dinner plates, "How did the fire start?"

"We're not too sure. It started in Tai's room and he was the only one in there. We're going to have to wait until he is better to find out."

"We need to talk to the digidestined here that were 'experimented' on. It is vital information that we picked up regarding the technique 'Master' used. Josh, Steph and Melissa, the other three Victorian digidestined, are also here in Japan. We were wondering if you could all meet in the park tomorrow. We're all here until late tomorrow night, so if we meet tomorrow afternoon everyone should be able to come. Can we meet at this time tomorrow?" the Japanese destined exchanged glances.

"Yeah, I suppose that we can, and I know that we should," Davis answered for them all, taking charge because Tai was unable to. Emma's smile seemed to relax a little, as though she was relieved about something. That made T.K a little nervous as until then he had not realised that she had been tense.

"Can the destined that have not been 'experimented' on come too?" it was naturally Kari that asked this question.

"No, it would not be a good idea. What we are going to discuss may sound gruesome and torturous to those who have not experienced the 'experiments.' We do not want to scare anyone," Entier told her smoothly, making up a good excuse to keep them away. In the distance the wail of an ambulance siren could be heard coming closer and closer.

"We have to go now, but we'll see some of you tomorrow. We have a trip around the city to do yet, and I really hate ambulances. See you mates!" and with that Emma and Entier left the building.

"That was… weird," Sora admitted, watching the couple walk away. She had an idea what the meeting was going to be about, but she found the whole lie setting the meeting up strange. She had never met Emma before, until the girl had saved them from the fire, but even with that small meeting Sora had found her… nonsensical would be an appropriate word. She only hoped that the rest of the Victorian digidestined were not as strange as she was…

"Steph, come on! We've got to go," the two girls rushed out of their English class and breathed a sigh of relief. English was not their favourite class, but that was not the reason why they were rushing. They were going to have a meeting with Entier, Melissa and Josh before they left to meet the Japanese destined.

"Guys, don't forget about me!" Melissa called, stopping the two girls before they got to their lockers. Melissa had not had school that day as the VCE students had the day off after exams. Emma and Steph were IB students, which meant that they did not have exams and therefore, no day off. Emma and Steph packed the books they needed into their already bulging school bags before the three of them made their way to a deserted classroom. Melissa checked that they could not be seen before Emma transported them to the same park they had met at the day before.

"You girls sure took your time," Josh joked as they arrived at the park.

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in why don't you? It's not fair, why did we have to go to school today?" Steph dumped her bag on the ground so that she could stand without leaning precariously backwards from the weight of it. Emma's bag soon followed.

"Well, as you all know, we are going to have a meeting with the Japanese 'experimented' on digidestined. I'm hoping that they can all make it," Entier turned the conversation back to the matter at hand, his grey-blue eyes reflecting the seriousness of the situation.

"What are we going to tell them? Are we going to tell them our plan to live in the Digital World where we cannot harm others?" Melissa seemed desperate for this plan.

"Melissa, remember that Matt wasn't 'experimented' on. That means that he would stay here," Steph reminded her, knowing of the crush that Melissa had on the blond-haired musician. Melissa turned a little pink, but she did not say anything. She knew that arguing on this point would be futile and time-wasting.

"We could do that, but not all of them have dangerous 'gifts'. Take T.K for instance. His 'gift' is of healing and therefore he poses as no threat to anyone here. If he decided to become a doctor, he could heal all his patients successfully and without suspicion. I have also noticed that he seems to be enamored with Tai's little sister Kari, who is one of the 'normal' destined. He may not be prepared to leave her behind. I think that we should give them a choice of whether they want to go or not," there was a short silence after Entier's speech whilst the others considered it.

"I agree with you," Emma said softly, gazing at the ground. For some reason she looked as though her mind was wandering, but it wasn't the same as when she was off in her 'other world.' Entier knew the reason behind her behavior, but he did not mention it. They had made their decisions; it was now time for the others to do the same.

"I agree with you too. I love the Digital World and all but… I don't think that I could leave Matt behind," Melissa seemed to be juggling her priorities inside in an inner struggle. Entier was not sure what she would decide when the time came.

"I personally think that it would be better if we were all away from where we could hurt others, but we could make exceptions for 'gifts' which are not very dangerous," Steph pondered aloud before she nodded, showing that she agreed. By her side Josh just nodded in agreement, he too deep in thought.

"I need to know your decisions now. Are you going to go to the Digital World for the rest of your lives or are you going to stay here?" there was a definite tone to Entier's voice. He had asked the question and he was not going to let them leave until they answered it.

"You know that I'll go Entier," Emma's voice again was soft, and also a little sad, "My 'gift' can prove to be dangerous… what if I accidentally take the steering wheel out of a moving car? That's not really my reason for going, but you know what that is anyway."

"I'll stay. My 'gift' is not really dangerous and I want to stay here with Matt. If things don't work out between us then… maybe I'll find my way there somehow," Melissa did not really want to part with her friends, but love can do that to some people.

"We'll be going," Josh and Steph answered at the same time. Josh stopped and let Steph continue, "We were talking about this yesterday. We knew this was going to happen for some reason. I love the Digital World and I want to get away from my crazy family, at least for a while, so leaving is the answer. Also, my speed is dangerous. What if… I know what I mean. We want to go." She finished simply, at a loss of how to explain why.

"Yeah, in the Digital World there are not many animals that I can speak to. That means I have only a small chance of losing my sanity. I think that leaving is the answer for us," Josh agreed.

"Alright, and I am leaving too. We'd better leave for Japan now. I'll explain on the way…" and with that Emma transported them away…

_To be continued…_

End of Chapter 12

Litanya: That concentrated more on the Victorian digidestined, but it sets up the rest of the fic I think. It is almost finished, I promise. Probably only one more chapter and an epilogue, but it might be longer or shorter or something. Please RR and I'll try to update as soon as I can. Oh and Steph, from now on the character of Emma probably won't be based on the real me, as you have probably seen in this chapter. But it is me in a way…


	14. Leaving

Litanya: Here's the next and probably last chapter. I do not own Digimon etc. Sorry for the long wait.

**_An Old Box_**

****

**_Chapter 13_**

They were all there waiting. Tai was still feeling some side-effects from the fire but he was still there, fiddling with a piece of grass. He had made sure that his family was okay before he had snuck out of the hospital, getting Joe to cover for him. After all, even though Kari had said that everyone would go to the meeting, she had wanted to keep him in hospital. Sora was seated next to him in silence, also playing with the grass. Since no one was talking, there was nothing else better to do. She wore a bandage around her arm where the burn had been, although she felt no pain in it thanks to T.K. Cody, Davis and T.K were watching on with a touch of horror at the game of 'Bloody Mary' that Yolie and Ken were playing. Ken's hand was thoroughly bruised already and they had only been playing for five minutes. This was how the Australian Digidestined found them.

"It's great to see that you all made it," Entier greeted the others as he arrived. He knew Emma's 'gift' very well and so he was able to judge when they would arrive. He also was accustomed to the motion-sickness that it was possible to get from the sudden transportation system that Emma used. Josh was looking pretty pale when they landed, and Melissa fell over with the velocity of the landing.

"It's good to see that you made it too Entier. When I heard of your mode of transportation I admit that I had my doubts," Emma's reply was to stick her tongue out at Tai, who had made the comment, "But I suppose that they were wrongly thought out. After all, I forgot who it was that was using their 'gift.'" There was a hint of something in Tai's voice, but both Entier and Emma ignored it.

"We're here because we want to make a proposition to you, which most of you will probably agree to," Steph said quickly, wanting to head off an argument that she knew either Emma or Entier would start, "Not all of you will, but most of you will agree. Melissa here is the only one that did not agree to it back home." Melissa gave a small smile.

"It's a great idea and all it's just that…" she trailed off as she realised that the Japanese Digidestined had no idea what they were talking about. Entier sensed it too.

"Okay, here's a brief explanation of our plan…" he began to explain, looking at the Japanese Destined to see which ones were agreeing with him. He saw a lot of nods from everyone and quite a few confused looks from Davis, but overall he knew that most of them would agree. The fire had helped them realise what could happen.

"I'm in," Tai said immediately after Entier had finished explaining. He had been thinking of doing something along those lines after the fire but he had not wanted to go alone. Now Entier was offering the perfect opportunity for him to go to a place where he could not do much damage. It was almost too perfect to be true.

"Why? I'm sorry, but I have to check the reasons," Entier continued on after he saw Tai's incredulous look.

"Because I go around starting fires unintentionally," Tai told him, pointing out the obvious, "And that can be very dangerous if you hadn't noticed." He examined his left palm intensely as he said this, seeing a small orange flame flicker out of it. He knew that fire was going to come out of his hand, so he placed it on his right hand. Almost immediately the fire leapt out of his palm, but was contained on his right hand before it went out.

"A very good demonstration Tai," Steph pointed out, seeing the smoke pour out of his hand. She then spoke again, but the words were too fast for the others to hear. She sighed to herself as she realised this, cursing her 'gift' for working when she did not want it too. It did not matter all that much at that moment though because she had not been going to say anything important.

"What about the rest of you?" Josh asked, getting to the point again. He did not want to stay at the meeting all day as he had to make plans on what he was going to tell his parents.

"I'll go too," Sora decided, "Because the wind in the Digital World is not as strong. Besides, someone has to keep an eye on Tai. If we don't watch out, he'll have the entire Digital World on fire!" Tai stuck his tongue out at her very childishly, and she just responded with a grin.

"We'll be going too," Yolie cut in smoothly, stopping the argument that would definitely have cropped up between the two best friends, "I mean Ken and I will be. We've already discussed it. The only problem that we could come up with was that we had no way to get there. But now that you've explained your plan, it seems that there is a way."

"Cody and I are in too. We were also discussing doing this with Yolie and Ken. We were on our way to tell the others when we heard about the fire," Davis spoke up for the duo. By now T.K was the only one that had not replied.

"I want to stay here. My powers are not dangerous and I have something that is keeping me here," he said after a few minutes.

"Don't you mean some_one_?" Tai teased, knowing what T.K was thinking about. The younger boy blushed as Tai had thought.

"I don't know what you're talking about Tai."

"My sister of course. Look after her for me when I go, okay? I know that I can trust you to do that."

"Of course Tai, you didn't need to ask."

"What do you say if we all meet here again in about two hours? That should give everyone enough time to get everything sorted. Then we can leave for the Digital World," Entier suggested, making it almost sound like a command.

"That sounds great," Sora agreed. They said a quick goodbye to each other and then separated. After all, they had to get their own things sorted, not each others.

"Jun! Jun, come here!" Davis called to his older sister once he got home. Their parents had gone on a cruise around the world and they were not expected back for a few months. They had left the week before and the cruise took six months to complete. At the time Davis had complained because he thought that it was unfair that they got a cruise whilst he had to stay home, but now he was glad. He would not have to say goodbye to them then.

"What is it Davis? You sound as though something important is happening," Jun walked into the room, drying her hair with a towel. He ran up to her and gave a big hug, something that he had not done since… ever.

"I'm leaving for a while. You know how I was in that coma and then I had those strange powers?" Jun nodded, "My powers never went away and they were out of control and I don't want to hurt you or Mum or Dad so I have to go and…" He trailed off as he realised that it was the last time he was going to see his sister. He did not want the last time with his sister to be wasted with a hug.

"So you're leaving?" she asked as he pulled out of the hug.

"Yeah, are you going to be glad to get rid of me?"

"I'll think about it and give you the answer later," she promised, "So, what do you want to do with your last bit of time here?" He was surprised that she was letting him go. They did not get along all of the time, but she _was_ his sister and she was used to having him around. Even though they did not like to admit it, they enjoyed each other's company. Sure, they were not as close as Tai and Kari, but still, they were family.

"Let's play Monopoly! I only have two hours here, less than that, but we always used to play Monopoly when we were younger," he begged, having a sudden urge to play the long and highly competitive game. Jun raised an eyebrow, but she led the way to the games cupboard.

"The only Monopoly we have is Pokemon Monopoly," she warned, grabbing it out before the other games could fall over.

"It doesn't matter, let's play!"

"Mum, Dad, I'm leaving now! See you in a few… years!" Emma called from her bedroom. She had gathered all of the things she needed and she wasn't planning on staying. She had told her parents through the door that she was leaving as she had not wanted to face them. Her three brothers would only find out that she was gone through her parents.

"Wait Ems!" her Dad called out and he twisted the doorknob again, trying to get into the room, "We don't want you to go!"

"It's too late for that. See you," and she disappeared out of her room, knowing that she would start to cry if she had been any longer.

Cody sat with his grandfather. Both of them were holding glasses of prune juice, the colour of the juice staining their lips.

"I'm sorry that I have to go Grandpa," Cody told the old man, "I really want to stay but… the Digital World will be safer and more accepting of me. If I had healing powers like one of the others, then I would stay. I just wish that none of this had happened."

"It's okay Cody. Some things happen for what seems to be no reason at all, when really they are the most important things in life. For example, I first tried prune juice by accident. I picked up the container believing that there was something else inside. But no, it was the most delicious problem-solving drink; prune juice," Cody nodded, understanding what his grandfather meant even with the bad choice of metaphor.

"So what you are saying is that even if you are not expecting it at first, the things that happen may be for a reason? I'm a little confused, but I think that I get it," Cody took another sip of his prune juice, his thoughts only on the topic at hand.

"That's right. But even if things do not turn out good, take a sip of prune juice and it will all turn out to be better," Cody just sighed. Whenever it looked as though his grandfather was being extremely wise, he would always stuff it up because of prune juice. In a way that made Cody love him more, but it was very repetitive.

"I'm going to miss you Grandpa," his eyes started to run with tears, but he just took another sip of prune juice and continued to stare into the distance.

Entier packed up the things that he would need without a thought. There was no one home as his parents were at work and his brothers were at some party. He had left a note of the bench, but he was a little disappointed that he would never see his family ever again. He hoped that the others were having more luck. He knew that Emma's family would be at home; they always were. His family was always out somewhere. It was not that he cared most of the time, but this would have been the last time to see them. He sighed as he closed the front door to his home and went to the meeting place. After all, he could not jump himself all over the place like Emma. If he could do that, he would have seen his family.

Yolie raced to the convenience shop that her family owned and hastily pushed open the doors, not really caring if she was going to make a fuss. Her apartment was over the shop, so there was only a small chance that all of her family was not somewhere within the building.

"Yolie calm down! Why are you rushing about like that?" her oldest sister remarked as Yolie almost demolished a pyramid of soup cans.

"I'm sorry but I really need to talk to you. Can't you just close up the shop for an hour or two? Please?" Momoe looked at her as if she was crazy.

"What? Mum and Dad would kill me! They're only upstairs so they will know if I close up shop."

"Fine, I'll go ask them first, _then_ I'll come get you, okay?" and with that she went flying up the stairs to their apartment. Momoe could only watch in shock as her baby sister disappeared.

"Mum, Dad, I need to talk to you," Yolie called as she entered the apartment. Her parents appeared almost out of nowhere.

"What is it Yolie? And next time you don't need to be so loud," her father did not look very happy about something. Yolie knew it was a bad time, but she also knew that it was the only time she had.

"I need to talk to everyone. I have to leave…" she went on to explain when and why they had to let her go.

"Go get Momoe honey and the others. We can watch some of the baby videos before we go, just so she won't forget…" Yolie felt bad as her mother was on the verge of tears. Her father just left the room without a word. Yolie took that as a sign that he too was upset.

"Great idea Mum… But I'll never be able to forget you."

"I know that, but still… you're my little baby girl and I don't want to lose you," she straightened up before she could cry, "Now lets go get some popcorn and get the movies started!" The rest of her family poured in and they had a huge family goodbye which ended in tears and memories.

Steph's brother Jeff opened the door, holding a backpack and about to go out.

"Bye Jeff," she called out to him as he left, not really feeling as though she needed to talk to him. She went straight to her room, knowing that her parents would only be home in about half an hour. She packed everything that she thought that she would need in a small bag, feeling grateful as her eyes swept over a book on Anton Chekhov. She was relieved that she would never have to do that English oral. She felt sorry for Emma, who had had to do the oral a few days before. She was happy that she was leaving, but at the same time she could not help but feel sad. She had so many friends there, and even though most of them were not digidestined, they were still some of the very best people that she knew. No, they _were_ the best people that she knew. She blinked, refusing to think of them anymore. She heard the door bang, signaling that her parents were home. She left her room and approached her parents carefully. She had no idea what they were going to say.

"Steph, what are you doing home this early? Don't you usually work now?" her mother asked as soon as she approached them."

"Yes, normally I do but… I'm not going to work anymore," that probably wasn't the best way that she could have said it, but her parents had started the conversation that way.

"What? Why not? You need the money for when you move out later in life. What if you cannot find a job later, once you're out of school? Then you will have no money and you'll be living on the streets-

"Mum, I'm leaving in about half an hour," that statement stopped her mother in her tracks.

"Where are you going? If you're not going to work then you'll need to study harder than what you are doing right now! I forbid you to go out with friends," her mother obviously was not in a good mood.

"Well, I'm not going out with friends. I'm leaving as in I'm going to the Digital World and living there for the rest of my life. I need to be there and I _want_ to be there. You can't stop me," she did not mean to sound as demanding as she did, but it had the effect that she wanted. Her parents were shocked.

"What do you mean that we can't stop you? We are your _parents_. We control where you are most of the time and most of the things you do. Therefore we _can_ and we _will_ stop you from going," her mother told her sternly. Her father still had not said a word.

"What do you think Dad?" Steph asked, hoping that he would agree with her. He looked between the two women and sighed. He did not really want to do this.

"I think that if Steph really feels that she needs to go there, she should go. She is sixteen now and she is old enough to fend for herself. She has lived in the Digital World before, so she knows what she is doing. Besides, if she does not like it there then she can always come back," Steph was relieved. At least one of her parents agreed with her.

"But-

"No buts. Steph can look after herself. After all… I have a feeling that there is much more to this than what she is saying. All I really know is that she needs to go."

"Thanks Dad… and Mum… I'm sorry that I have to go, but this is what I want to do. No, this is what I need to do. I'll send you messages from time to time and I may be able to come see you, but for now this is goodbye," and with that said she turned and walked out of the door. It was funny. She had always wanted to leave her family, but now that she was doing it she felt a little sad. But then she realised what life was going to have in hold for her and she cheered up. A life without her family would suit her just fine… for a little while at least.

Ken did not go home straight away. He knew that his parents would be upset at him leaving, especially as they had lost their other son all of those years ago, but he had to go. A 'gift' of water could be very dangerous and he did not want to hurt anyone. He was walking along the river that wound its way under the bridge that was near his apartment, just thinking of what he could possibly say. He was surprised when he heard his name being called out loudly.

"Ken! What are you doing out here son?" it was his father. He did not know how the man had found him, but he could not run away now. He had to tell him the truth.

"I was just taking my last walk along here," he said truthfully, looking at the reflection of the golden Sun in the river instead of seeing his father's reaction.

"Your last look? Whatever do you mean by that? You weren't planning on running away again, were you?" his father's voice was accusing, but Ken forgave him. After all, he had run away a lot in the past.

"I have to go and live in the Digital World. You know how I was in that coma before I fought that evil Digimon? The powers that I received in that coma never went away. It's too dangerous for me to stay here… I might hurt someone unintentionally. Most of my friends that were in the comas are also going because it is too dangerous for us to stay here. I really don't want to go if it means leaving you and mother, but I don't have a choice. I just don't want to hurt any innocent people. It's a chance that I cannot take," his father said nothing for a while, only staring at the ripples that a duck was making in the river. When he finally spoke his voice seemed a little strained.

"I understand Ken… I think. Your mother and I will miss you very much. I just want you to promise me one thing."

"What's that Dad?"

"I want you to promise me that you will come and visit us sometimes. And when you visit you should bring Yolie too. We'll want to see the girl that we almost consider as a daughter too. But most of all, we will want to see you. Do you promise that you will visit?"

"Of course. I was planning on doing that anyway. I'm going to miss you and mother a lot you know. I'm just afraid on how I'm going to tell her that I'm leaving."

"Well, come on son. We'd better go and get this over and done with," and the father and son changed direction and began to walk towards their home in silence. They wanted their last words to each other to actually mean something. What they would say would come from the heart at the right time, and that minute was not it.

Josh walked to the meeting place with his bags, all ready to go. He had said goodbye to his family quickly and he had barely stayed at his home for five minutes. He just had not been able to stand saying a long goodbye. The time that he had spent with his family had been good, but he had not been able to stop thinking that that would be the last time that he would see them for a while. That was why he had left. He sighed to himself and began to walk to the meeting place, pushing his family from his mind. As much as he did not want to forget about them, he also did not want to think about them. Instead he began to think about his reason for going. There was only one and he grinned as he thought that he was heading straight for it. At least one of his dreams could be kept alive.

The flower shop was almost empty as she walked through the door. Bells jangled to signal her arrival as the door closed behind her. She could see her mother at the counter, serving a dark-haired customer with a smile, lovingly wrapping the flowers up in tissue paper. Saying goodbye was going to be harder than she ever could have imagined.

She walked through the shop until she found the section where the roses were kept. They were quite close to the entrance as they were the most popular flower in the shop. There were four different colour roses that they sold; red, white, pink and yellow. Red was by far the most popular as it symbolized love, with white coming second as they symbolized purity and were commonly used for weddings. Yellow and pink roses were hardly bought anymore, as most people did not give their friends yellow roses to signify their friendship and pink roses did not look as important as red roses. Sora grabbed a single pink rose and walked up top the counter. Her mother had just finished serving the last person in the line, so she acted as though she was a customer that wanted to pay for the rose. Her mother still had not looked up, so she did not know who was standing in front of her.

"Good afternoon how may I help you," she looked up and put on a confused look, "Sora? What are you doing here? You're not working until next week because of exams and you have always told me how much you hate this shop!" Sora just smiled and handed her the rose.

"I just wanted to buy this for you Mum. I'm thankful for everything that you have done for me, including making me work here. You have a beautiful heart Mother and I just want to say… thank you," Mrs. Takenouchi narrowed her eyes a little. Whenever her daughter said things like that to her, she always wanted something. That was her experience anyway.

"What else do you want Sora?" her tone was suspicious and Sora knew that she could not keep it from her any longer.

"I have to leave. I have to go and live in the Digital World… it will be safer for everyone if I do," her mother looked extremely confused now.

"Why? Please tell me Sora, I don't understand!"

"You know the powers we all received when we fought that digimon after we awoke from our comas?" she nodded, her eyes showing that she knew what was coming, "They didn't go away. The fire in the Kamiya's apartment proves this. Tai didn't mean to do it, but he started the fire. The reason why he received no burns was because he was immune to the effects of the fire, except for the smoke of course. My 'gift' has something to do with Wind, so the smoke did not affect me at all. If we don't go to the Digital World, we could destroy the world unintentionally. Our 'gifts' work automatically. Tai wasn't even thinking about fire when he started one. We have to leave. I don't want to, but I have no choice." A short silence followed the explanation.

"Are all of the digidestined leaving?"

"No, only Ken, Yolie, Davis, Cody, Tai and I. The others don't have 'gifts' except for T.K, and his 'gift' is something to do with healing. He couldn't harm the Earth or anyone on it. We're leaving later today with a few digidestined from Australia. They have someone that can transport us to the Digital World," it felt good to tell her mother all about it. When she had been younger, the two had not gotten along. Ever since Sora had first come out of the Digital World however, their relationship had gotten a lot better and they often talked to each other. In a way Sora wished that her mother could go with her, but she knew that it was impossible.

"If you must leave, then you can go. I trust you enough to let you go. You and Tai will have to look after the others, but I know that you will be able to do it. I only wish that I could have had further notice, then I could have organized something special for you…" she disappeared into the room behind the counter, leaving Sora waiting. She came back out a minute later, holding a purple rose. The thing that surprised Sora was that it was a real flower, not fake.

"How did you get a purple rose?" she could only ask as her mother held it out to her.

"It was an accident. Something spilt on to the rose as I was trying to turn it blue and it turned this colour instead. I want you to have this so that you will always remember me and your time here. If things don't work out in the Digital World, remember that you can always come back home, okay?" she did not want her daughter to go, but she understood. She had had a long time to get used to the idea of her daughter being a digidestined and she knew that sometimes that meant Sora would be in danger. She also knew that if Tai was going then there was no way that she could keep Sora there. She was glad that at least Sora wasn't on her own.

"I'll never be able to forget you Mum," Sora gave her mother a great big hug and then left quickly, knowing that she would change her mind if she stayed a moment longer. Her mother watched her leave, before turning back to the pink rose that lay on the counter in front of her. At least her daughter was thankful that she had been there. That was all that mattered.

Melissa casually walked through her front door. She had to be at work in half an hour, but first she wanted to discuss something with her father.

"Hey Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we go and live in Japan?"

"Umm… If I can find a job over there, maybe."

"I've already found you a job over there."

"Well… I suppose that we can move there then."

"Cool! I'll go and tell work and then we can leave as soon as we can!"

"Okay… See you soon then!" and Melissa turned and walked back outside to go to work.

Tai walked with T.K back to the hospital, where his family would be. He needed T.K there because Kari would probably not let him leave. He remembered back to when he had defeated Etemon and he had been sucked back to Earth. Kari had not wanted him to go back and help the others in the Digital World. That was why T.K was coming along; he was going to be the distraction. Tai had a letter in his hands. He could have just asked T.K to give it to Kari, but he wanted to see his sister. He was going to talk to her for a while without mentioning that he was leaving and then he would leave, pretending to be going to the bathroom. T.K would then give her the note. That was his plan anyway.

"Tai, where have you been?" Kari asked as soon as the duo walked into the room, "I've been looking everywhere for you!" Tai gulped and held T.K in front of him.

"Don't shoot me Kari or you'll hit T.K instead!" he joked, still using T.K as his human shield, "I was only at that meeting that you promised I would go to. It was your fault that you said I could go really." Kari just gave him a pointed look and then pointed at the bed that he was supposed to be occupying with her le hand. Tai sighed and sat on it, still refusing to lie down.

"Tai, what am I going to do with you? You need your rest! You were in a fire just yesterday and your throat still isn't better. And don't tell me that it is because I can hear your voice rasping sometimes," Kari seated herself down in one of the chairs next to the bed and T.K sat next to her, "So what was the meeting about?"

"Oh we were just discussing some of the techniques that 'Master' devised and how we could use his methods for something good… but we didn't manage to find anything. Apart from that it was nothing," Tai lied expertly. He did not want her knowing the reality at that moment and if T.K had answered then she would have known that they were lying. Kari was especially good at knowing when the blond boy was lying.

"Oh, so nothing interesting then I take it," Kari lost interest in the subject, somehow sensing that the two boys did not want to talk about it.

"Yeah, nothing really," T.K agreed, keeping his tone neutral.

"Hey Kari, you know how the whistle I gave you burnt in the fire?" Tai asked suddenly, putting his hand around something in his pocket.

"Yeah?"

"Here. On the way back from the meeting I found this," it was a whistle that looked almost exactly the same as the one that had been destroyed. Tai had seen it when he and T.K had passed by a shop that sold toys. Tai had noticed something gleaming in the window and he had seen the whistle. He had then gone in and bought it, using the money that his mother had given him in case he had wanted to get a drink from the drinks machine in the hospital corridor.

"Wow… you didn't need to buy me this Tai," Kari knew that it could only have cost a few dollars, but to her it meant much, much more. The whistle was a symbol of the bond that the two of them shared. It meant that she could call Tai whenever she was in trouble and he would help her. Always. She immediately put it around her neck, fingering the top as she did so. She could feel the symbol of light engraved lightly on the top, as though Tai had just gotten something sharp and traced the pattern on. That made it even more special. It was the best present that he could ever have given her. The brother-sister duo talked for a little while about meaningless things, with T.K saying only little. He knew that it was their time to talk. After about half an hour of small talk Tai stood up.

"I'm just going to go to the bathroom okay? I'll be back in a few minutes," that was the cue for T.K to distract Kari.

"Okay," T.K said, although it seemed that he was answering a different statement. Kari just nodded, "Hey Kari, you know that project on…" Tai exited the room and walked down the corridor. He passed the bathroom door and continued on. He had chosen this path and now nothing could stop him. At least he knew that T.K would look after his sister. As long as she was okay, Tai did not care if he had to leave. His parents would be fine with it, but Kari would worry. But she had T.K with her, so she would be fine. That was all that Tai wanted.

After she left the flower shop there was only one place that she wanted to go before she left for the meeting place. As she reached the Cherry Blossom tree she flopped down onto the ground for a moment, to get her breath back. She had ran the entire way and so she had to wait a while before she could breathe properly again.

"You wanted to say goodbye to this place too," it was more of a statement than a question, but she still replied.

"It's a good place… I have many memories here. We always used to come here when we were younger," she stood up and climbed the tree, knowing that he wasn't very far behind her. She was thankful that she was not wearing a skirt as that would have been embarrassing.

"I know what you mean Sora. This is my favourite place in the world… and now I have to leave it. It's too bad that we can't take this tree with us," they had reached the top and they sat on two branches that were opposite of each other. This was where they had always come when they were upset, angry, and happy or if they just wanted to be alone or find the other. They could not remember a time in their lives when they had not come to this tree.

"I agree. Why did this have to happen to us Tai? We never asked for it and we are happy here. Now my mother is going to have to work in the shop alone and Kari is going to have to protect herself from any potential boyfriends. Why do we have to leave everyone behind?"

"We're not leaving everyone behind, remember? We have Yolie, Ken and the others with us. Kari won't have to protect herself from potential boyfriends because she will have T.K. And Kari has already offered to work at your mother's flower shop before… I'm sure that she will offer again. And don't forget that we can always visit. Emma can transport us back if we need to be here. And anyway… I'm just glad that at least my best friend is coming with me," Sora gave a small smile, but she still wasn't very happy.

"I suppose that you are right… We do have our best friends going, don't we? I'm very happy that we have our friends going but… it's just not the same as family."

"But don't you see? We digidestined have become family! The two of us are like their parents and the rest are like children. I use that metaphor because that's what Kari has always told me. I am the leader… which is the father figure and I can't lead properly without you to point out my mistakes, so you are the mother figure. Therefore we are taking family with us, just a different type of family. Do you know what I mean?" Tai's cheeks were slightly red as he blushed. He liked the metaphor that Kari used but for a slightly different reason. He liked the idea that he and Sora were a couple. It was slightly embarrassing, but he could not help but feel happy that some people thought of the two of them like that.

"I know what you mean. I'm being stupid I know but… I just love my Mum and I don't want to leave her," Sora's cheeks too were a little red, her thoughts mirroring Tai's to an extent. Although the two had feelings for each other, neither of them had actually admitted it before.

"No, you're not being stupid. I'm going to miss my family too. I think that you're being brave just saying that you're leaving and actually telling your mother. I didn't even tell my parents, I didn't even tell Kari either. I just left a note with T.K. You are doing the right thing in the end. It may be difficult at first but it is better than endangering the people we love here. Sorry, I'm just blabbering on here," he had noticed that she was staring down at the ground, a usual sign that she wasn't listening.

"No, it's not that it's just… I always dreamt of what my life would be like. I'd graduate from high school and go to university before falling in love with my dream guy. He'd-

"Propose to you on a beach and then you' would get married in a church with lots of flowers… then you would graduate from university and become a teacher, then have children later on and you would die at the age of eighty-five a very happy person," Tai finished for her. He had known her life plan since they had turned fourteen. Sora did not like to change her plans and so she had repeated the same thing every time that someone had asked her what she wanted to do with her life.

"Heh, I guess you know me too well," Sora muttered under her breath before she continued, "But now I can't do any of that."

"You never know… You could meet the guy of your dreams in the Digital World."

"But you'd be basically the only guy there!"

"Do you have a problem with that?" the question had come out of his mouth without thinking and the two blushed at the same time and looked away.

"Not particularly," Sora finally replied, taking her eyes of the ground and sneaking a look in his direction.

"I was just thinking… that I… I think that I'm in love with you, so I wouldn't really mind either," Tai thought that he had only been thinking it, but he was surprised when Sora spoke again.

"Really?"

"Umm… did I just say that out loud?" she nodded, "I mean… I do mean it. I uh, kind of had a crush on you when I was younger and then it kind of… developed into something and… Oh crap, I'm no good at this romantic stuff." Sora just giggled at his vain attempt to say something romantic.

"It doesn't matter Tai. I know that you're not a romantic. Just promise that you'll stay with me forever."

"I promise."

"That's good; I didn't want to have to force you to promise. I guess that now that you've told me that you are in love with me… I should tell you that I love you."

"Are you just saying that because you have to?" Tai just wanted to make sure.

"No you dolt! I said it because I meant it!"

"Good!" his heart was pounding in his chest. That had been the scariest moment of his life, "Now what's supposed to happen?"

"Now we kiss and say how much we love each other."

"I have no problems with that."

"I didn't think you would," and they leaned in and kissed for the first time ever.

The big group was standing in the park, each carrying a small backpack. They were all ready to leave.

"Are we all ready?" Emma asked, her hand firmly clasping Entier's in her own. She was scared of leaving and so she had to hang on to him to make sure that she didn't just bolt back to Australia by herself.

"Yeah, we should be. There's no point in hanging around here; it will only make us want to stay. We should leave now," Entier told her calmly, squeezing her hand to try and comfort her.

"Everyone, take your last look at Earth for the time being. It's a beautiful place but we have to start a new life in the Digital World. Let's go!" Tai commanded, taking on the position of leader.

"Okay!" they all chorused as they disappeared from the Earth, all ready to start their lives in the Digital World.

The End

Litanya: There, this fic is now finished. I admit that the ending is quick and a little lame, but that is because I do not have much time. Sorry that it took me so long, but it was because it is hard for me to access the computer these days. The next chapter of 'The Reason' will be up in a few weeks. I want to put it up sooner, but I cannot because I am very busy. Thank you for reading and reviews are appreciated!


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